Microsoft, LinkedIn to Retrain Unemployed Workers for In-Demand Jobs

(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. and its LinkedIn unit will provide free job training to help unemployed workers prepare for in-demand jobs as the global pandemic pushes U.S. joblessness to levels as bad as those during the Great Depression.

The program uses LinkedIn data to find the jobs that employers most want to fill, and offers free access to content that helps workers develop the required skills. The company will also cut the cost of its certification exams and offer free job-seeking tools. Microsoft aims to provide additional skills to 25 million people globally by the end of the year through the program for such jobs as software developer, customer-service specialist and graphic designer.

Microsoft said its calculations show global unemployment may reach a quarter of a billion people this year. The U.S. unemployment rate was 13.3% in May, the highest level since 1940, as the coronavirus shut down stores, restaurants and bars, with higher rates of joblessness among Black and Latino workers. While parts of the economy are starting to reopen in the U.S., companies are also shutting down, filing for bankruptcy or announcing permanent job cuts to adjust to a long-term slowdown. 

In January, Microsoft began working on a plan for a smaller program to highlight tools to address a long-term move to jobs that are becoming increasingly digital. When Covid-19 hit, the company decided to expand the program to reach more workers faster, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview. 

“Covid-19 sent so many people home, if they had the good fortune to keep their job and work from home,” Smith said. “It became clear that in order to get back into the workplace, many people would not be able to return to the job they left —  they might need to get a new job  — or even their old job required a lot more digital skills than before.”

Microsoft used data from LinkedIn to come up with 10 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.

One piece of the original program that has been broadened in the wake of the pandemic is funding for nonprofit groups to reach out to people who otherwise won't know about the program or who can't do everything online. Microsoft will spend $20 million in cash grants for global nonprofits with a goal of helping 5 million unemployed workers this year. The effort will focus in particular on people with disabilities, workers from low-income communities, women and minorities. A quarter of the money will be earmarked for grants to 50 U.S. community-based nonprofit organizations led by and serving communities of color, Microsoft said. 

“Someone who is unemployed needs to know what to learn. We give them the access to that learning material for free to areas where we know there are recruiters and hiring managers on the other side waiting to hire them,” said Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn's chief executive officer. 

LinkedIn also plans to provide its own labor market data and information on in-demand skills for free to governments. The data will include popular job openings in a region, the top skills required for those jobs and data on which employers are hiring the most in a particular geography. The data will be available at opportunity.linkedin.com.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.