Microsoft and LinkedIn have agreed to offer free job training to help unemployed workers prepare to take up in-demand jobs, as unemployment .S continues to surge worldwide due to the global pandemic.
The program is straightforward; using the data from LinkedIn, it finds the most sought skills by the employers and provides free access to content to help the unemployed workers develop those skills.
The key perks in the program
The company has also announced it will be reducing the cost of its certification exams and provide free job-searching tools. Through this program, Microsoft plans to offer additional skills to more than 25 million workers worldwide by the end of the year.
“Microsoft used data from LinkedIn to come up with ten roles with the greatest number of job openings, steady growth for the last four years, “livable” wages and skills that can be learned online,” the company said Tuesday in a blog post. “These include software developer, sales representative, data analyst, customer service specialist, and graphic designer.”
LinkedIn is also planning to give its labor market data and information concerning in-demand skills freely to governments. In the data, it plans to include popular job openings, top skills needed for such opportunities, and data on employers who are employing the most in a specific region. The data will be accessible at opportunity.linkedin.com.
Efforts to reach out to more people
For some reason, for people who will not know about the program or can’t do everything online, Microsoft announced that it is funding nonprofit groups to cater to such a group.
Microsoft plans to spend $20 million in cash grants to fund global nonprofits to help 5 million unemployed workers in 2020. The focus will be on unemployed workers from low-income communities, women and minorities, and people with disabilities.
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