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Jobs website agrees to changes to assist the blind

BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts officials are hoping blind job candidates will find it easier to seek employment in the future because of changes Monster.com plans to make to its services.

Changes by Monster Worldwide, Inc. are aimed at giving visually-impaired people equal access to the company's jobs website and mobile applications.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says the changes will follow an agreement the company reached with her office and National Federation of the Blind.

Her office says it wasn't sparked by a complaint or litigation threat, but grew out of consumer advocacy concerns and work with advocates for the blind.

Monster.com will use software that converts on-screen information into Braille or speech so blind people can use keyboard commands to access the same information as people who can see.

The company says portions of Monster.com already were accessible to the visually-impaired, but agreed more could be done to enhance it.

The Massachusetts attorney general says the changes will benefit vision-impaired people nationwide, including more than 35,000 Massachusetts residents.