A new digital TV service will offer viewers the opportunity to view thousands of job vacancies at the touch of a button.

A new partnership between Jobcentre Plus and Looking Local, the local government digital TV portal, gives all digital TV viewers access to a real time, national job search engine. On Looking Local job seekers can search by postcode to find vacancies for their local area.

This initiative provides jobseekers with another means of ensuring they can access the 400,000 jobs that Jobcentres across the country are advertising.

Employment Minister Jim Murphy said:

“Jobcentre Plus helps 17,000 people into work every week. Customers can already access Jobcentre Plus services through around 1,000 locations nationwide, including over 800 Jobcentre Plus offices, as well as by phone and online. This new partnership with Digital TV provides a new means helping job seekers find work.

“With over 70% of homes now owning at least one digital TV set a greater number of people have access to digital TV than the web. This is a great way to bring a comprehensive job search facility to those without access to the internet.”

Each job ad on Looking Local comes with a full job description and details of location, wages, benefits and how to apply. Users can refine their searches to specify whether they are seeking temporary or permanent posts as well as the number of hours a week they wish to work. By allowing viewers to include these criteria in their searches the service aims to ensure that the most appropriate vacancies are found.

The service is available to anyone that has access to Sky, cable or broadband enabled Freeview boxes.

Notes to editors
Jobcentre Plus, part of the Department for Work and Pensions, brings together employment and benefit services for people of working age and is a key element in the Government's objectives to help people based on ‘Work for those who can, support for those who cannot’. It provides a professional and modern service to meet the diverse needs of employers and those seeking work, including:

• Personal advisers to provide practical support and advice to help those in need find and keep work, including training provision and benefits guidance
  
• A dedicated service to support employers in filling their vacancies quickly and successfully, including the ability to place jobs online
  
• Ability to search for jobs both online and over the phone through Jobpoints in Jobcentre Plus offices, the Jobseeker Direct phone line and through the website
  
• Swift, secure and professional access to benefits for those entitled to them.
  

Customers can access Jobcentre Plus services through around 1,000 locations across Great Britain, including over 800 newly refurbished Jobcentre Plus offices. Touch-screen terminals and Customer Access Phones are also available in a further 120 sites such as libraries and local authority premises. Jobcentre Plus works with over 275,000 employers to place 17,000 people into work every week. Over 400,000 vacancies are listed each week on its website and more than 4m job search requests are received, making it the number one UK recruitment website.

For further information on the services that Jobcentre Plus provides employers and people of working age explore this website.

Pathways to Looking Local services:

Looking Local on SKY:

• Press the Interactive button on your remote
  
• Select SKY Active from the menu
  
• Select Interactive Service
  
• Select Local Services
  
• Select Looking Local
  Or
  
• Press the Interactive button on your remote
  
• Select SKY Active from the menu
  
• Select A-Z
  
• Select Looking Local

Looking Local on ntl:

• Press the Interactive button on your remote control
  
• Chose NTL Interactive
  
• Chose Community
  
• Select Local & Government
  
• Choose Looking Local
  
• Chose region/area

Looking Local on TELEWEST:

• Press the Interactive button on your remote control
  
• Select News & Info
  
• Select Community
  
• Choose Looking Local
  
• Select your preferred area or use the postcode search

Looking Local is powered by DigiTV. For more information visit www.digitv.gov.uk

DWP Press Office: 020 3267 5144
Out of hours: 07659 108883
Textphone: 020 7238 0788
Website: www.dwp.gov.uk