JACKSON, Miss. — Traffic in WIN Job centers across Mississippi remains strong, but not every county has one.

Many of the services offered at the job centers are available through the Mississippi Department of Employment Security’s Web site. But nearly half the state’s population doesn’t have home Internet access, the U.S. Census shows.

To reach those who don’t have Internet access, MDES has been providing another option for nearly 18 months.

Job seekers can use computers at one of nine E-WIN Access Points across the state that are set up at libraries and other public offices where job seekers have free Internet access. Staff members at those sites are trained to help job seekers sign on to the site and search the database for jobs.

MDES is planning to add more sites within the next month and will use federal economic stimulus money to fund its mobile units touring the state to provide job-search assistance to those in rural areas.

The expansion efforts started before the state’s legislative watchdog agency, the Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review, began reviewing the structure of MDES in July. PEER director Max Arinder says the review, is “not an investigation.”

PEER is examining the way MDES is run “to see if there are opportunities for improvement or perfection of that process,” Arinder said.

MDES may have to work with other agencies to make the process work.

To have an E-WIN site, for instance, MDES must rely on another agency already providing the building and staff. Those who staff the E-WIN sites are trained to help the public, but they are not paid for their work.

Betty Yates, an ambassador for the E-WIN Center in Holly Springs, will meet soon with local officials to seek help in paying the $1,500 monthly rent at the building where the computer access point is housed. A youth program that also operated from the building had been paying the rent, but that program is moving to a new address. Until last month, Yates worked for them. She plans to remain behind and run the center.

The centers have the potential to become increasingly important as the state’s unemployment rate rises. Latest figures show the state’s July unemployment hit 10.5 percent, up from 9.9 percent in June.

MDES serves the state’s 82 counties with 44 full-time and nine part-time WIN Job Centers. Even when there isn’t a job center in a county, Stan McMorris, director of customer operations at MDES, said most are still within 35 miles of another county’s job center.

E-WIN centers are intended to fill in the gap for those in rural counties who may have trouble getting to other job centers in the state, but their popularity varies.

Charles Cox, regional director of the Pine Forest Regional Library System, offers the service at four of its five full-time libraries and would like to expand. The library system serves four counties.

“We, in effect, are the job centers (for those counties),” Cox said.

In six months, 128 people used the E-WIN computers at the libraries.

Since it’s July opening, Yates has had about 100 users at her Holly Springs office. She said many in her community try to go to the WIN Job Center in Southaven.

“That’s too far for them to travel,” she said, later explaining that some are uncomfortable driving in Southaven, a community south of Memphis where traffic is more congested.

Sherley Wyatt, coordinator for economic development for the Jefferson County Board of supervisors, said her site in Fayette has had very few users. That county’s unemployment rate was 21 percent in July, the highest in the state.

The access point is in the Economic County Resource and Development Center where students meet to study for their high school equivalency degree. Although many of those students have used the service, use has fallen off as the class continued.

“People are not using it like I’d like to see them use it,” she said.

Among those who didn’t know about it are the Rev. Elvis Colenberg. He was laid off from his Cooperative Extensive Service job at Alcorn State University at the end of June.

His home computer isn’t working, and he went to the WIN Job Center in Natchez for help. He didn’t know about his local E-WIN access point.

But having a job center doesn’t guarantee low unemployment. Monroe County has a full-time WIN Job Center, and its July unemployment rate was 15.8 percent.

Holmes County has a part-time center, and its July unemployment was 20.3 percent, the second highest in the state.

“The key is not that you have a WIN Job Center,” McMorris said. “You’ve got to have jobs.”

———

On the Net:

MDES, http://www.mdes.ms.gov

———

Information from: The Clarion-Ledger, http://www.clarionledger.com