What is the National Labor Exchange

Introduction

The National Labor Exchange (NLx) is an electronic labor-exchange network, created in 2007 in a partnership agreement between NASWA and DirectEmployers Association (DirectEmployers). This is an unprecedented public-private partnership that leverages private non-profit-owned technology with existing state workforce agency resources.

The NLx collects and distributes job openings exclusively found on over 25,000 corporate career websites and state job banks - and is growing on a daily basis. There are more than 4 million job openings on the NLx at any given time.

All NLx services are offered at no cost to state workforce agency customers – both jobseekers and employers – as well as to state workforce agencies and federal partners.

Today, all state workforce agencies, including the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have signed participation agreements with DirectEmployers to operate the NLx.

Mission & Vision

The mission of the NLx is to provide the most accurate and comprehensive collection of real online job openings in order to achieve the highest level of efficiency for the nation's labor exchange – at no additional cost to state workforce agencies, employers and job seekers.

The vision of the NLx is to provide the nation with an accurate understanding of the current labor market in order to improve labor exchange efficiency to better serve our nation's diverse workforce.

Strategy

While the NLx network aims to collect all real job openings in the market, this effort is not about creating a single outlet for all jobs. Capitalizing on today's jobseeker behavior the NLx seeks to place quality job feeds in the hands of trusted partners whose goal is to facilitate the labor exchange.

The NLx gathers currently available and unduplicated job opportunities from verified employers, well beyond DirectEmployers members, and pushes that content into state workforce agency sites, federal portals and multiple syndication sites, to reach a maximum number of jobseekers.

Regardless of where a jobseeker discovers an NLx job opening, they will be returned to the point of origination: either the corporate career website or the state job bank.

Operations at a Glance

  • The NLx collects and distributes job openings exclusively found on corporate career websites, state job banks, and usajobs.gov (the federal jobs portal).
  • The NLx allows state job banks to seamlessly receive and share job openings collected by either state agency staff or DirectEmployers technology.
  • Job feeds are refreshed and shared with states daily. The previous day's file is eliminated and replaced with a new one – ensuring job listings are current and reflect what is posted and advertised on corporate career sites and state workforce agency job banks.
  • All job openings are unduplicated, currently available, and - most importantly - are from vetted employers.
  • In an effort to avoid duplication and expired links, the NLx does not index third party sites or job boards. This provides better employment outcomes and user experience.