Microsoft will train 25 million people with digital skills

Microsoft announced the launch of a global initiative – together with LinkedIn and GitHub–– that aims to train 25 million people around the world with digital skills to help them get a job.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the world economy, and according to estimates by Microsoft, 250 million people worldwide will be unemployed in 2020. In the United States alone, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the unemployment rate in the country will rise from 9.3 in 2019 to 11.5 percent in 2020. This means that approximately 25 million people will be unemployed by the second half of 2020. For its part, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in May that the unemployment rate among Latinos increased by 18.9 percent, so 1 in 5 Latinos are currently unemployed in the United States.

One of the key steps required to foster a safe and successful economic recovery is broad access to the digital skills necessary to fill new jobs,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft in a press release.

Smith said the initiative will use data to identify jobs and the skills needed to fill them, provide people with ways to develop these skills, and offer low-cost tools and certifications.

From time to time, the initiative will kick off by taking data on jobs and required skills collected by the LinkedIn Economic Graph, provides free access to content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and GitHub Learning Lab, and combines Microsoft certifications with job search tools from LinkedIn.

Additionally, Microsoft will offer US $ 20 million in cash to nonprofits that focus on helping people most in need, and a quarter of this money will go to nonprofits created by and for ethnic minority communities in U.S.

According to LinkedIn, among the jobs with the highest demand worldwide that will be “especially relevant in the coming months and during this decade” and on which the initiative will focus, are: software developer, sales representative, marketing specialists digital, data analyst, financial analyst, graphic designer, among others.

“To help people search for jobs in these areas, we are making LinkedIn Learning courses aligned with each of these available roles,” LinkedIn said in the press release. Each course will be free and will include video footage designed to help job applicants develop the basic skills for each position. Each learning path is available in English, Spanish, French and German.

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