This study, an interim assessment, has attempted to understand the role of the Federal-State public employment service as a job search intermediary for insured unemployed workers. The conceptual role, the actual role, and claimant responsiveness to role change have been studied of three selected local offices in providing job search services to claimants. The reader is provided a better understanding of efficiency and equity aspects of the employment service role in helping claimants find jobs the extent of variation in claimant circumstances, and the relative importance of particular personal/market characteristics associated with job search processes and the length of time a claimant remains out of work. Employment service, on the average has filled fewer than one out of every five job openings; for the three groups studied, employment service was not influential in facilitating their return to work. Since most claimants obtain new jobs through some other method of search, implications of the study would be a shift from placement to assisted job search. Factors associated with different search strategies might be identified and used as screening criteria before offering more varied job search services to selected claimants. (EA)