106.09 Public employment offices.

(1) The department shall establish and conduct free employment agencies, license and supervise the work of private employment offices, do all in its power to bring together employers seeking employees and working people seeking employment, make known the opportunities for self-employment in this state, aid in procuring employment for the blind adults of the state, aid in inducing minors to undertake promising skilled employments, provide industrial or agricultural training for vagrants and other persons unsuited for ordinary employments, and encourage wage earners to insure themselves against distress from unemployment. It shall investigate the extent and causes of unemployment in this state and the remedies therefor in this and other countries, and it shall devise and adopt the most efficient means within its power to avoid unemployment, to provide employment, and to prevent distress from involuntary idleness.

(2) Any county, city, town or village may enter into an agreement with the department for such period of time as may be deemed desirable for the purpose of establishing and maintaining local free employment offices, and it shall be lawful for any county, city, town or village to appropriate and expend the necessary money and to permit the use of public property for the joint establishment and maintenance of such offices as may be agreed upon, or in counties containing 250,000 inhabitants or more in any city, town or village therein to purchase a site and construct necessary buildings. Provided, that in any county, city, village or town therein, wherein there is a citizens' committee on unemployment, such committee may rent, lease, purchase or construct necessary buildings for the joint establishment and maintenance of such free employment office, subject to the approval of such plans by the department. The department may establish such free employment offices as it deems necessary to carry out the purposes of ch. 108. All expenses of such offices, or all expenses not defrayed by the county, city, town or village in which an office is located, shall be paid from the appropriations to the department provided in s. 20.445 (1) (ga) and (n).

(3) The department may rent, furnish and equip, except as provided in sub. (2), such offices as may be needed in cities for the conduct of its affairs. All payments arising under this section shall be charged against the proper appropriation for the department.

(5) The department is authorized and directed to cooperate with the U.S. employment service in the administration of its functions.

(7) The department may, by rule, fix and collect fees for provision of employment services authorized but not funded by the U.S. employment service.

History: 1971 c. 185 ss. 1, 7; 1971 c. 228 ss. 25, 42; Stats. 1971 s. 101.23; 1973 c. 90 s. 559; 1979 c. 34 s. 2102 (25) (a); 1981 c. 36 s. 45; 1983 a. 27; 1985 a. 29 ss. 1650, 3202 (29); 1995 a. 27 s. 3692; Stats. 1995 s. 106.09; 2003 a. 33.