This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.

There is of programs is to describe how the city government is using modern computers in ways which bring benefits directly to the people of the city of New York we're all familiar with the clerical uses of computers and sometimes the clerical work made be done well sometimes not so well by computers However in recent years we are seeing meant much more imaginative much more innovative use of computers our guest today is Jack White the assistant commissioner in the manpower and career development agency of our Human Resources Administration the subject that we'll be talking about is how MC DA and Commissioner White are using computers in a very imaginative and very new way to find jobs for the unemployed in the ghettos. First of all Jack I wonder if you might fill us in on what the role and purpose of M. C. D. A is and what the neighborhood manpower centers are well the manpower and career development agency was created in one nine hundred sixty six by an executive order Lindsay as an attempt to try to bring together the diverse activities that were scattered all over the city as I've often described it like telephone wires that were crisscrossing all over each other and many people in the business of trying to find jobs for people but not doing a very satisfactory job some programs were successful minimally others were not so successful and it was a just a heavy use of money that could have been put together in a different way so it's an attempt to organize the resources to concentrate them with more effectively underneath the man part redevelopment agency we've organized a system of neighborhood manpower centers the centers primarily responsible for finding people providing counseling testing services for them and where I think the interesting part about it is that we sub contract these to community corporations which are located and fifteen areas around the city and all of the boroughs of the highest degree of poverty OK So the neighborhood manpower centers are supposed to help people find jobs test them to counsel people for what kind of jobs they might find and then to link them up with an appropriate job. What is the computer have to do with all this can you describe how you're using a computer in this process what is a computer do how does it do it it's supposed to do how does it help the people find jobs just just to put it in a little bit of perspective with what it does what the personal computer. Helps the professional counselor by relieving him of some of the paperwork that he has to do instead of him looking through the want to add section are looking through piles of papers about jobs available that are available the computer does that function for him I might add much quicker. How how exactly does it work how do you. What is the computer set up out of the what kind of paperwork does it eliminate Can you describe perhaps the sequence of events and what happens when to match a job and the person who needs a job every every evening really we get jobs from a job development people some of them come via groups like the urban coalition and some employers just call us directly we put these jobs on to a computer and the next morning beginning at nine thirty in the morning people come into the neighborhood man power centers which are located throughout the five boroughs dimension. And a counselor sees them does some basic work up on to find out if he's had any work experience or whatever it is that information that's required this is then fed into the computer it gives a brief description of the person plus what he's looking for let me understand this and other words. You've loaded up a computer with jobs at your job developer is a founder there are certain number of jobs available and you know where they are available and how much they pay in certain other information what kind of people are needed for the jobs then when a person comes into the neighborhood the neighborhood manpower center in the morning he spent some time with the with the job council there and the job council get some information now as I understand it and I visited one of the centers Let's see let's see what happens the the central computer is located in one place but that computer is connected to a lot of remote little law like typewriter terminals that I located in the manpower centers So in other words the job counselor then sits at that. Terminal and punches in some information about the prospective job applicants I guess the kind of job he's looking for maybe where he lives and so on and then what happened was actually he doesn't do it we've trained people who were community workers or clerks. To be terminal operators and they actually get the information from the council that they can be doing that while the council does something else I think so we're really relieving him of all the clerical ice and so he can deal more with the person but this person dials up calls up the computed sounds for kind of funny coma calling him a computer but the typewriter as you describe it the terminal talks directly to the computer and what they put in things like the sexy age what's the lowest fower the person looks up will he work only in a particular borough and we're using the dictionary of occupational titles which is put out by the Department of Labor as a way of describing. Job and they have this book contains thirty five thousand of these titles we only use in the New York City thirteen hundred because we've looked at them in terms of those jobs that are available in New York City plus that would probably fit the levels that many of the people we're working with I think once this is put in the information is put in the computer then checks its files to see if it has a job to match up with the information that's been put in I see it compares the jobs that are already has stored away with the requirements of the individual and if a job can be found with the right kind of occupational title and the right salary range in the right geographic area someone lives in Staten Island may be very difficult forms and get a job in the Bronx for instance. So the so the computer the does this matching I take it we don't like to say it matches because that somehow frightens people but what it does is it reduces the requests down to a single number and that it's possible that there may be several requests for the same person and then it feeds it back to the typewriter where the. The terminal operators located in that process takes about ten to fifteen seconds for it to look through its files find out if it has a job if it does it printed out if it does not it tells the person that they do not have a job available at that time but it keeps that person on file so we can continue to look for any idea before what are some of the kinds of jobs we might might be involved in other words what kind of job classification might that counselor arrive at and so the subsequent search is made by the computer what are some of the kinds of jobs of Well usually we try very hard to get a number of jobs in the entry level of jobs that have training with them because a good deal of the people that we're working with have minimal skills or the skills have become obsolete through a variety of means either through automation or the companies that were doing that kind of work are no longer in the city but those skills and a long are required so we were looking for many jobs that have a good entrance sour level because man still has put his family but the same time will offer him training so he can move from that to the next step so we have jobs for example electronic assemblers. And trainees in that category mechanics truck drivers and we also have the whole range of jobs that don't need don't have any requirements at all such as house all kinds of jobs we're looking we like to look for jobs that have a skill that can be learned out of it and that they can study and I can imagine that without this kind of computer setup if you've got manpower centers all over the city and how many did you say you had we have nineteen we have fifteen terminals at this time OK I can imagine that without some kind of a rapid communication device like like the computer you're using I can easily see where your job councils will be snowed under in paperwork and probably be rolled to the unsuccessful finding jobs because it seems to me. Well how would this without a computer how would the system work you have to get your job descriptions and kind of copy them and circulate them send them by mail by messenger to all the centers and then you can very easily have five different applicants in five different centers being signed up for the same job and then you've got to have someone who some one person somewhere else who kind of coordinates from all of those places so there's a lot of transaction or there was in the old system we were using Not to mention the amount of time that was spent typing up stencils and running them off approximately a thousand dollar a month mailing bill for just sending these out and no criticism of the postal system but sometimes it took two weeks for the mail to reach a center and by that time the jobs I've been filled are the jobs that were left with the jobs are always there so many people in many areas never got a shot at those jobs in this new system allows us to be able get a job really at twelve o'clock in the afternoon and have someone referred to it by one thirty even though that person is in maybe on South Jamaica and the job is in man in Manhattan so we've essentially reduced by a quarter of a million dollars An operation that we had that was very cumbersome at that best and move those people some of them we retrained to work in this operation and others are now moving doing more direct contact with people so kind of puts more troops on the fire yeah instead of having a huge army of coordinators expediters a liaison man trying to keep track of what's happening every place very impressive tell me something about the origin of the system in some respects I think there's one of the most intriguing and important parts of it first let me say because I think you're you're too modest to say it is that the idea was yours and and even though you're not a so-called computer professional you recognize that computers can be useful in achieving in helping you achieve your mission which is the fire. Jobs for the unemployed. So I know that you had the original idea could you describe for us how did that idea bear fruit there are lots and lots of good ideas kicking around but sometimes too few of them reach reality what happened on this one well I and my the job before this one I have now as director of the neighborhood man processes I was responsible for helping to set them up and I used to get the very discouraged when I'd go out of the Senate and just see numbers of people sitting in chairs waiting for hours only to be told that perhaps we didn't have anything for my the training slot or a job at that time and it was just horribly frustrating to me and I got to thinking what is the way we can speed that up and I'm one of those who believes computers can do anything at least the advertising is so so I started checking into it and. I was another fellow in Bedford Stuyvesant Herman flowers who works for you that action who at that time was getting a computer operation and to do payrolls and inventory for that particular corporation and we talked at length about the possibility of using that system to match people with jobs of course we started to look around to find out how that could be done we found that we had the wrong kind of equipment at least that's what people were telling us but we kept looking and we stayed with it until finally we were convinced that the possibilities of doing it were very great and then the problem was to convince the people whom I had to convince who are above me that this was a worthwhile investment. They took let me understand that now in other words the the your connection is the name of the Bedford Stuyvesant Community Corporation and they had a computer that they were using for certain business clerical kinds of functionality and you recognize it and I might add it was it wasn't being used an awful lot during the week because there was spare time on the computer in other words all right so that's the is that basically the computer you. Wound up using mass as I see we started off with that one we have one with a little bit larger capacity now but essentially that's the system we started off with and we added to it several devices that allowed us to be able to hook telephone lines into that particular computer operation and that's how you've got your manpower centers all over the city connected to a computer that's actually sitting out in the in the Bedford Stuyvesant area and I for have you I've biggest problem I guess the story really gets kind of fascinating there is that. Not being a computer expert myself you know you were lucky yeah and not really believe in some of the experts that I that I had talked to I ran into a group of gentleman from who themselves were expatriates from the ghetto and they were looking to get into the computer business as a as a business opportunity and we talked and I said we have no money for this it's just an experiment that I've got a lot of faith and they were so excited about the possibility of doing something that could really help out and they got out of that they took it on as as a project. To see if it could work and I think the combination of the enthusiasm of both that was really reflective of what finally has come around now the city of course is I think is fine in this a worthwhile ventures a point where they're beginning to support it that I think is one of the most fascinating intriguing aspects of the fact that in many ways this project is kind of a triple header one it was an a business a legitimate fine business opportunity in an advanced business area computers for a local group of stilled professional people starting out a new company on their own Secondly it was an opportunity for the local community corporation to provide services for the residents of that community and third it was an opportunity for the city government to move in and organize this on a city wide scale. To do fall. And to find jobs for the employed Let's turn to the question of performance of the computer system is in when they're going by the way when is this thing where when you first start the project and when did you first go operational where that when jobs are actually being well we little than love. The project of trying to get it to go was about a year in the making right have we actually started the actual designing and writing the programs for the system and the middle of July one thousand nine hundred sixty eight we had the system completely programmed and we have learned the word debug means that most of the problems the ha ha ha by the first of November and during that interim course we were practicing with the centers because we had the problem of teaching people because we didn't want to fire a lot of people we wanted to retrain people who are already in the neighborhoods and thereby stabilize our employment picture but they use the system as a training mechanism also so we had to train all of our terminal operators we had to train some of I keep on top writers and the even the people who operating the the computer itself I might add that the majority ninety percent of the people who work in that computer center or from the back of the Stuyvesant community and it's a light blue building with a glass front and even the youngsters in the neighborhood talk about their computer and they've been in to touch it and play around with it so it's having additional effects that we hadn't planned for but it started in November of one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and as the problems are building the files up what we mean by building the files of people coming in for the first time we have to take the information because the previous of this information just put in a file someplace and now feed that in to the computer center so their names can be added to our files we call of the people bank so if we have jobs come in we can look for people who might fit the category of the job on a training bra kind of a skills bank right really is right is right what skills are available in the area this is this is building up we had we want to build it up and maintain it at about a five to ten thousand level even though we have a fifty thousand possible record capacity. Same is true with the jobs coming in which we call the job bank in which occasionally we pass these two to see if there's any anybody in the job bank who people fit in the mind of people buying the jobs or the training programs for it but I put thousand figures from a period of about the second week in December to the second week the third week in January and which we recorded into the files four thousand eight hundred ninety two people these are people coming in for the first time who are looking for jobs of that number we match three thousand nine hundred forty seven of them now by matching it means the computer found jobs for that number of people. Some of those people may have subsequently said the well I really don't want that job I really would like to have another job at least as Mat's that number we've also found an additional benefit and it was for about roughly four thousand out of five thousand right to have the numbers right about four thousand or five thousand you did find some kind of a bit of a job match where we find that the the accuracy is is almost overwhelming those of us who are kind of social workers oriented. The if you put in the information appropriately because remember keep in mind the councils also have a listing of the jobs that we have available so it's almost a pretty much a hit every time they go in the thing that would prevent them from having a match is that if someone else has called in and gotten that same job even though they're all looking at the same sheet the computer automatically. Puts a hold on that job no one else can get it until it's either released by the person who originally got it or a nother form comes in which tells the people at the computer center that that person was accepted at that job and is now working in other words when the computer comes back to the to the Neighborhood Center in response to particular inquiry let's say Joe Smith shows up and he's he's got some some skills and the bakery sealed. Mechanical assembly work let's say and the one way or another the computer gets advise that here's someone with skills and mechanical assembly work or a computer that looks through the file for mechanical assemblers and finds a job it then reserves that job for this individual I see and what does it actually what does the computer actually print out at the Neighborhood Center what is it tell about the job and what does the guy do that well it prints out at the computer center first of all it includes a Social Security number of the person who gets reserving the job for us so that gives us two records that we maintain it also prints out the title of the job the occupational and the industry in which. We have a number of each job plus it tells the counselor who to contact at that place what is telephone number is his address and any room number or any special things that may be available by the counselor then takes this calls up the personnel person or the manager whomever is and sets up the interview personally for that person to appear one of the reason we like this is because it gives people in the neighborhood an opportunity to talk back and forth with people in business so if they begin to have difficulties with some a biopic and some of the employees have already made use of our senators as an additional resource for helping to without with problems and some of the people may find getting to the job also it gives us a way of. Occasionally you call and say take a little a chance on an employer they might not take a chance on normally because they know it's thing I know it's kind of early in the game if you just stop start operating in November you've had less than three months of experience and you've already cited some figures do you happen to have any information on the ultimate How many people actually found were hired for jobs so far as a result of this job matching effort now we've we find that we were about twenty percent more effective than we were so over three thousand nine hundred forty seven we know that seven hundred forty six are still employed on those jobs and that is quite an improvement over what we were able to tell before and we not not only know that that number but we know who they are we know what's ours they're making if there's been any escalation some of the things that we want to do we're moving we've already ordered terminals and who eventually placed in the welfare centers which will be hooked into this system it will also begin to organize and control recruitment for us and the opportunities in such a way to be much easier for people to get them I see that's right I can see all sorts of implications in this kind of a system from the from the from your point of view from the commission and from the commissioner's point of view the fact that once you start finding out what kinds of skills or kinds of people you have you can start or orienting your training programs. Appropriately and if you find you've got certain kinds of jobs. You can you can train people for the jobs if you find you've got people same kinds of skills you could have your job developers go out and look for more jobs in those areas for which you have applicants very impressive Well I think in summary Jack you described to us today a very very significant accomplishment one that you personally deserve a great deal of credit on for having conceived and having carried through and it seems that. What you're doing is doing your job. Which which is to to find jobs to match up unemployed with jobs you've taken advantage of the modern technology which is available you've gone beyond the mimeograph machine stage in the lots and lots of telephone calls stages and you're simply using the modern tools and techniques that are available to you you've put them together in a very creative kind of way taking advantage of the Bedford Stuyvesant community cooperation local law businessmen and urban coalition and various other places in order for you to do your job and therefore to bring benefits the people of the city of New York thank you very much for joining with us then today Commissioner White thank you. Thank you Dr Service You've been listening to another broadcast of computers in modern city government if you have any questions about today's program address them to computers when Wise see you New York one hundred zero zero seven The address again is come pewters W N Y's see New York one hundred seven and join us again next week at the same time for another look at computers in modern city government.