During the last twenty years, the nature of work in the industrialised world has changed.

The prospect of jobs, trades and professions for life has almost disappeared.

In the U.K. most people now expect to have several jobs and learn new skills throughout their working lives.

In spite of this the ways in which potential employees, employers and training providers communicate with each other has hardly changed since labour exchanges were introduced in 1909.

As a result the U.K. and other Western economies find themselves in a situation where many people are out of work, often in a drawn out job search, while at the same time employers operate inefficiently because of the lack of skilled labour.

Get the right people into jobs: Use a computer database system to match up the skills possessed by job-seekers with the skills required by employers.

Get the people trained: Use the database to identify the areas of skills mismatch and provide training where and when needed.

Get moving quickly: Use the internet to speed up communications between people seeking work or training, employers and training providers.

1. The key skills mastered by job-seekers through work, education, training and life experiences would be identified.
2. These skills would be stored on a National Skills Database.
3. Employers would be given a list of the range of skills stored on the database. When they needed new employees they would contact the database centre via the internet stating the range of employee skills required. The centre would then contact all registered job-seekers who fulfilled the criteria and invite them to apply for the posts on offer. The connection could be made via the internet and/or traditional mail.
4. This service would be free for unemployed people. Those currently in work would pay a fee if they wished to be informed of relevant job vacancies.
5. Surfers would have access to the jobs on the database via schools, libraries, Careers Offices And Job Centres as well as via home computer links to the internet.
6. The skill requests from employers would be used to modify existing training and education courses.
7. The database would increase training efficiency, motivate trainees and be of benefit to industry but could be self financing.

¨ It would speed up the recruitment process ¨ Recruitment costs would be reduced ¨ Selection procedures would be simpler ¨ Employers could indicate to training providers their employee training needs

¨ Every job application would be meaningful ¨ Motivation to improve skills would increase

¨ Career planning would be simplified and more effective ¨ The system would treat all citizens equally

¨ Trends in employer needs would be identified, increasing the cost effectiveness of training

¨ Aspects of social unrest and crime related to long-term unemployment would decline

¨ Training needs would be identified at a local level, increasing cost efficiency of training provision ¨ A just-in-time work force would lower the economic "natural level of unemployment" ¨ Job regeneration schemes, required when major sources of local employment dry up, would become more efficient.