The Local Employment Service (LES) is a community based employment and activation service which provides jobseekers with a one-to-one career path planning and placement service. LES provides a personalised service, based on the unemployed person’s individual needs and supports them in a number of ways including:
- Help with finding employment
- Guidance sessions
- Providing information
- Helping to develop a career plan
- Identifying job opportunities
- Identifying training and educational support
Some offices provide weekly jobseeker support networks, organise networking events with employers, and email weekly job alerts. Jobseekers are often referred to the LES through the Department of Social Protection’s activation measures, and others engage directly with the service themself.
In the attached video, through one man’s personal story, the importance of Local Employment Services supporting long-term unemployed people to find decent and fulfilling work is highlighted. The LES operates on a policy of working with people, their guidance counsellors explore all options available to people, how best to achieve their ambitions, whether that would be through education and training, employment schemes, or supports for starting a small business.
LES mediators work with clients to develop their C.V.s and job seeking skills, developing a plan that focuses on their skills and abilities to find a job that suits them, and through their contacts with local employers can be helpful in finding local employment opportunities.
Chapter seven of the INOU’s Working for Work (p210) provides contact details for LES around the country which is available here.