Denver’s job market is tough without help — so here come seven times more workforce centers
Let’s say you want a job and need help finding one.

(Neetal Parekh/Flickr via CC 2.0)
Let’s say you want a job and need help finding one. If you’re an adult living in Denver, there are four workforce centersĀ to help you:
And if you’re a teen, there are three centers. That’s changing, though.
The Denver Office of Economic Development hasĀ decided to septupleĀ the number of assistance centers, reports Next City Daily. (That increase includes youth services too. It’s not often that I get to describe a seven-fold increase — let me have just this one “septuple,” world.)
Spokesperson Derek Woodbury says that the transition began in July and all of the following centers should be online by next July.

(Denver Office of Economic Development)
Denver’s making this happen by contracting third-parties to provide workforce services in previously underserved parts of the city. That’s not been without criticism:Ā 36 jobs were lost in the transition, noted the Denver Post.
As Next City presents it, theĀ idea is that Denver’s job seekers shouldn’t have to come all the way downtown to access services.
“With this new system, [Denise Bryant, director of the OEDās workforce development program] says that a mother of five whoās out of work can take a skills-building course at a nearby high school computer lab. In the past, she would have had to find the time to drive downtown and walk into one of the cityās economic development offices, and petition for economic help in a room that āfeels like a DMV,ā she says.”
City officials told the Post in August that the change came because of new federal standards.
Either way, the new system means that the cityĀ hopes job placement will rise from 53 percent now to 90 percent in the future.