Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Monday that American Job Centers, a network of nearly 2,800 employment and training centers, will join Connect2Compete (C2C) as a digital literacy provider and outreach partner.
C2C is a $4-billion national public-private initiative that helps Americans access technology through free digital training, discounted high-speed Internet and low-cost computers.
American Job Centers—public computing centers providing career and job-search help—will add to the C2C network of thousands of free digital literacy providers, including America’s public libraries, non-profits, and companies like Best Buy that will be promoted in a nationwide Ad Council campaign starting in 2013.
American Job Center employees will be trained on C2C offerings and serve as outreach partners for C2C’s broadband adoption offerings, which include discounted high-speed Internet and refurbished laptops. As part of a pilot program conducted during spring 2012, C2C offered $9.95 Internet and $150 laptops to over 18,000 San Diego households with students eligible for free school lunch, in coordination with Cox Communications and Redemtech. C2C officials plan to extend this program to all 50 states in the coming months. Additionally, C2C will launch in the fall and promote via the 2013 ad campaign a finder tool as a one-stop search tool to locate nearby public computing centers or digital literacy providers.
Digital literacy is key to finding and keeping a job in the United States, according to the FCC. Roughly 100 million Americans currently do not have broadband at home and 66 million Americans lack digital literacy skills—the basic skill set needed to use a computer and the Internet.
According to the FCC, 77 percent of jobs will require technology skills in the next decade and more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies, including Wal-Mart and Target, already require online job applications.
For more information on C2C’s efforts to bridge the digital divide, visit connect2compete.org.
