With the introduction of America’s Job Bank, the Department of Labor laid the foundation for a virtual labor market—America’s Career Kit. America’s Job Bank is a "demand side" Web site where employers have already listed more than one million job openings which can be viewed daily by thousands of job seekers. Registered employers can now upload new job openings to the site daily, permitting them to keep their requirements up-to-date.

The second building block of the virtual labor market is America’s Talent Bank, a Web site where job seekers can post their resumes. This "supply side" site, an important companion to the Job Bank, currently hosts 400,000 resumes.

The third building block—America’s Career InfoNet—provides information on labor markets and career paths. This Web site provides information on which occupations are likely to increase in demand in the future and what skills they will require. Links to information on local labor markets permit the user to tailor a job search to opportunities in a particular region or locale.

America’s Learning Exchange provides information on training opportunities available to those seeking to upgrade their skills or to obtain new ones. Once a user has explored the Career InfoNet and decided upon an occupation, he or she can use the Learning Exchange to identify training needs and nearby training sources.

Finally, the Department is developing O*NET, the Occupational Information Network, to provide a common language about skills linking these America’s Career Kit sites.

An employer listing a job on America’s Job Bank is seeking a worker with particular skills. Similarly, a worker posting a resume on America’s Talent Bank is trying to describe to prospective employers the skills that he or she has to offer. America’s Career InfoNet and America’s Learning Exchange focus on the skills needed for various occupations and on the training needed to acquire those skills. America’s Career Kit is a set of tools that define the relationship between and among occupations, careers, and training, using the common denominator of skills. These tools will help match job seekers with jobs and help workers determine what skills they need and where to go for training.