DETR revamps and revitalizes Web site

A state-operated Web site that's a favorite among businesspeople got a new look and became a lot more useful.

The site known as the Nevada Workforce Informer includes information ranging from county-by-county economic indicators to wage information and unemployment figures, said Jered McDonald, an economist with the state Department of Employment,Training and Rehabilitation.

It can be accessed through www.NVDETR.com, www.NevadaWorkforce.com or www.NevadaJobConnect.com.

The state employment department has operated a Web site since the 1990s, but the new site allows users to dig deeper into the state's data.

Another new feature, said McDonald, is the ability of users to create a personal page where they can store their favorite publications or data queries.Whenever a publication or data is updated on the Web site, the information on the personal page also will be updated.

Users also can create a page in which economic data about a county is pulled from 13 separate files and presented as a single snapshot.

A consortium of states have worked together to develop their Web sites in recent years, McDonald said, and the improvements on the Nevada Workforce Informer site are the same as those made by other states.

The states share the development cost of updating their Web sites.

Among the types of information available on the Web site are:

* Names and contact information for major employers, both statewide and in individual counties.

* Current economic information such as employment by industry, along with historical data from the department's archives.

* Information about jobs that are expected to have large numbers of openings in coming years.

Many of the occupational listings are accompanied by video clips about careers in the field.

* Detailed wage information for individual jobs.

McDonald said the information about wages has been a particularly popular destination, both in the new Web site as well as an earlier version.

That information, he said, is used both by employers who are compiling wage comparisons as well as workers who want to know how their pay compares to the average in their field.

McDonald said all the information available on the old DETR Web site still is available on the new site, although some is found in different

locations.