It might seem an unlikely partnership, but it works. Cornell University students are helping workers stunned by layoffs get back to work.

The students have what many middle-aged and older workers lack -- the computers skills needed to identify and compete for jobs.

They also have Harold Oaklander '52. He is the impassioned director of the Department of Labor/Alliance for the Prevention of Unemployment Student Internship Program. He co-founded the program with Roger Gerby, former manager of research and evaluation at the New York State Department of Labor.

For six years, Oaklander has recruited Cornell students to spend winter and spring breaks volunteering at government-sponsored one-stop job centers. Students are in a good position to help, Oaklander said, because "they come in savvy -- they know information technology."

As news of deeper layoffs around the globe threatened to increase unemployment figures, the 11 students who volunteered at job centers last month through Oaklander met to debrief at the ILR School this month.

Manpreet Shergill '11 said some of the job center customers he assisted didn't know how to turn on a computer. "I was astounded," said Shergill, who volunteered at the Kane County Department of Employment and Education in Elgin, Ill.

Julian Hsu '11, who worked at a state Department of Labor job center in Brooklyn, said some customers there stood in line for hours to use computers, then struggled with the computer mouse. "They wanted to turn it like a car, rather than slide it," he said. By the end of their one-hour computer time limits, they were no closer to finding job openings.

Workforce Development Specialist Rayne Butler '96, who hosts interns at Tompkins Workforce NY in Ithaca, said computer assistance can be invaluable for many jobless people: "Employment application sites are anything but friendly. When people are in crisis, that's not the time for them to learn computer skills."

Oaklander has placed students at job centers in Oklahoma, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and across New York state. A Dutchess County resident who directs the program as a volunteer, Oaklander is motivated by years of work with international human resource executives.

He learned, he said, "We do less for the unemployed in this country than any other major industrialized country." Oaklander charges his interns with this: "Make yourself as useful as possible. Get some feeling for what's involved. Dig in, get data, leave a legacy."

The experience helps people get jobs and gives students "a chance to be a civil servant" and an opportunity to conduct field research often reserved for doctoral students, Oaklander said. Interning at job centers also shows students, he said, "how painful and costly unemployment is and how it tears people and communities apart."

During spring break beginning March 14, Oaklander hopes to have 100 Cornell interns volunteering at job centers in their home communities. More information is available at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/dolapuinternship/.

Mary Catt is a staff writer for the ILR school.