June 25, 2003

OU Tackles Unemployment with Online Job Bank

Responding to extremely high unemployment rates, which have hit the Jewish community particularly hard because of job losses among the highly trained and educated, the Orthodox Union has created a Job Bank as a new feature on its website, www.ou.org. The Job Bank is in addition to the already existing wide range of educational and religious features found on the OU site.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in May 2003 was at a national rate of 6.1 percent, compared to four percent in 2000, bringing the number of unemployed to nine million nationwide.

Speaking recently in New Jersey, OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb declared: “The Jewish community suffers from a new kind of unemployment. In the past, it was those who had no training who went without jobs. Today, it is the highly trained who are unemployed.”

To deal with this crisis in the community, the OU created its online Job Bank.

“In today’s difficult economy, the Job Bank is an important benefit we are making available,” said David Olivestone, OU Director of Communications and Marketing, who supervises the website.

The Job Bank features a wide variety of listings catering to the broad array of people looking for jobs. Categories range from healthcare to computers and technology; from accounting and bookkeeping to Jewish education and rabbinics (including a vacancy for a yeshiva principal in Cape Town, South Africa); and from office staff to sales, fundraising and business. The Job Bank also contains plentiful links to employment listings both across the United States and in Israel as well as links to numerous other employment services and job training sites. There is also a special section on relocation opportunities.

California, which has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the nation and where the Jewish community has been particularly hard hit, receives special attention with a corporate job category all of its own.

The Job Bank is updated frequently with new listings that come from a variety of sources. Current highlights from the new listings include:

• Outreach Director in Santa Barbara, California
• Database Marketing Analyst in New York
• Optometrist in Detroit
• Music Teacher in Las Vegas
• Bookkeeper in Brooklyn
• Two teachers in Piscataway, NJ
• Office Manager/ Rabbi’s Assistant in Tucson, Arizona
• Registrar/Administrator in Washington, DC
• Sales/Fundraiser in Atlanta
• Executive Director - Jewish Federation in Chapel Hill, NC
• Director of Operations and Finance Administration in Houston

The Orthodox Union, now in its second century of service to the Jewish community of North America and beyond, is a world leader in community and synagogue services, adult education, youth work through NCSY, political action through the IPA, and advocacy for persons with disabilities through Yachad and Our Way. Its kosher supervision label, the , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol and can be found on over 250,000 products manufactured in 68 countries around the globe.

Visit Job Bank!

www.ou.org

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Comments? Requests? Questions?

Orthodox Union Department of Communications and Marketing David Olivestone Director Stephen Steiner Director of Public Relations Main Office: 11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004 Phone: 212.613.8318 Fax: 212-613-0763 E-mail: steiners@ou.org  |  media@ou.org

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