Fresno County’s high unemployment rate of 18.2% has led to an influx of people looking for jobs on library computers. Employment assistance agencies are overloaded, plus employers send applicants to the library to apply online. Many job seekers with limited computer and job search skills attempt to do it all in the 1/2 to 1 hour time limit on the public computers, with an urgent (or immediate) deadline. They are frustrated and tense, confused by the computer, and then the session time runs out. Library staff help them, but last-minute, intensive help requests are often impossible to fulfill. In a perfect world, potential job seekers would first take the computer and job search classes they will need, then apply for jobs with their skills in hand. But this is not a perfect world.

Fresno County’s high unemployment rate of 18.2% has led to an influx of people looking for jobs on library computers. Employment assistance agencies are overloaded, plus employers send applicants to the library to apply online. Many job seekers with limited computer and job search skills attempt to do it all in the 1/2 to 1 hour time limit on the public computers, with an urgent (or immediate) deadline. They are frustrated and tense, confused by the computer, and then the session time runs out. Library staff help them, but last-minute, intensive help requests are often impossible to fulfill. In a perfect world, potential job seekers would first take the computer and job search classes they will need, then apply for jobs with their skills in hand. But this is not a perfect world.

Fresno County’s high unemployment rate of 18.2% has led to an influx of people looking for jobs on library computers. Employment assistance agencies are overloaded, plus employers send applicants to the library to apply online. Many job seekers with limited computer and job search skills attempt to do it all in the 1/2 to 1 hour time limit on the public computers, with an urgent (or immediate) deadline. They are frustrated and tense, confused by the computer, and then the session time runs out. Library staff help them, but last-minute, intensive help requests are often impossible to fulfill. In a perfect world, potential job seekers would first take the computer and job search classes they will need, then apply for jobs with their skills in hand. But this is not a perfect world.