No more JOBSinNL: Website casualty of government cost cutting

The Liberal government has mothballed a website that was set up to help employers connect with job seekers in Newfoundland and Labrador, saying it duplicated already existing resources and added "very little value" to the local job market.

The site — JOBSinNL.ca — went dark on April 1.

It now splashes a message announcing the site has been shut down before redirecting visitors to the federal government's online job bank — JobBank.gc.ca.

"JOBSinNL served as an add-on to the resources already provided by the Federal Job Bank, but offered very little value as its own site," Advanced Education and Skills Minister Gerry Byrne said in a statement.

"We saw no point to continue paying to maintain a website that duplicates a service already provided for free by the federal government."

Shutting down JOBSinNL will save the provincial government $108,000 a year. There are no government job losses as the website was maintained by an external contractor.

Duplication of effort

The former Progressive Conservative government created JOBSinNL.ca in the fall of 2009, celebrating it as a "powerful" website that "can provide job seekers and employers with everything they need in just a couple of clicks."

The page created a central database where local employers could post job openings and job seekers could apply online. It's goal was to help the province recruit and retain workers.

Last summer, the PC government celebrated enhancements to the page, synchronizing it with recent changes to the federal government's national job bank and making it more mobile and tablet friendly.

The page was billed as critical to the government's 10-year population growth strategy.

In a July 14, 2015 news release, the government said the web page had been visited 18-million times and had over 9,000 registered employers.

However, much of what JOBSinNL.ca did duplicated the function of the federal government's online job portal.

In fact, in that same 2015 statement, the government encouraged employers and potential workers to set up accounts with JobBank.gc.ca to maximize the effectiveness of JOBSinNL.ca.