The Promise: At a campaign stop in the Blount County town of Friendsville on April 8, 2010, candidate Bill Haslam unveiled a proposal that he said would bring employers and would-be employees together to reduce a state's unemployment rate that was "nearly 11 percent” at the time.

He said he would develop an "online jobs clearinghouse” that would pull together existing market data in a user-friendly way so that "every job seeker, employer, community official, higher education institution and economic develop organization has access to timely and accurate information on the current and future economic landscape of Tennessee.”

On May 14, 2012, the governor announced the database is up and running. Jobs4TN@online lists available jobs by profession, city and/or zip code. It also provides learning resources, labor market information and other special services.

"The unemployment rate for Tennessee is at its lowest since November 2008 and has fallen below the national rate, but it is still too high," Haslam stated in a press release accompanying the announcement. "With Jobs4TN Online, those without a job will have quicker and better access to job openings related to their skills, and as we work to make Tennessee an even better place to expand and start a business, we want to help employers find the employees they need."

The release also explained that the new site is an improvement over the state's previous offering:

"The state's previous job search site, the Source, included job orders received by Tennessee Career Centers and jobs listed by Fortune 500 companies. Jobs4TN Online uses a more robust search that provides first-run jobs from newspapers, government sites and private job boards, and the amount of jobs listed in Tennessee has gone from 30,000 to more than 85,000.

The governor's office stated in an e-mail to us that this fulfills the governor's promise of an on-line clearinghouse and we agree. Promise Kept.