Back in April, as part of its Elevate America initiative, Microsoft gave out 30,000 vouchers to agencies in its home state for distribution to people seeking free training and certification in the company's programs. The idea is to help people position themselves for better jobs at a time of rising unemployment. Of course, Microsoft also benefits by encouraging people to use its software.

Thousands of people have taken the company up on the offer. But the Employment Security Department, which received 25,000 of the vouchers to distribute through WorkSource locations throughout the state, says more than 17,000 were still available as of last week.

Time is slipping away. The deadline is July 31 to activate vouchers. People will have 12 months after that to use vouchers for free online training courses. They'll have until the end of August to use a different type of voucher offering certification in Microsoft programs.

Microsoft is offering three kinds of vouchers: training for business users on various Windows XP, Windows Vista and Office programs; advanced training for IT pros and developers; and certification exams for Office 2003 and Office 2007.

One complication is that the Employment Security Department is distributing the vouchers in person at WorkSource offices around the state. The Workforce Development Council, which received the remaining 5,000 vouchers in the state, has been offering electronic distribution as another option.

That appears to have proven more successful. For example, out of the roughly 1,000 vouchers available through the Workforce Development Council in Seattle and King County, many of them are gone, said Workforce Development Council spokeswoman Margaret Graham.

The Redmond company has said it hopes to provide training to up to 2 million people over three years through the Elevate America program. See this page for details on getting one of the remaining vouchers in Washington state.