Dive Brief:
- Microsoft plans to expand its TechSpark program, focused on creating economic opportunities and jobs, to all 50 states, the company announced Thursday. The program first launched in 2017, working with communities in North Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
- Through a partnership program, the tech giant will supply grants as well as hands-on mentoring and training on building broadband infrastructure, computer science education, digital skills and digital transformation.
- The TechSpark program has trained 50,000 people in digital skills and 1,100 computer science teachers. The program created or supported 471 computer science classes and placed 3,300 jobseekers, according to Microsoft.
Dive Insight:
Despite signs of economic trouble and layoffs across large technology organizations — Microsoft included — demand for technology skills persists.
The overall number of tech job postings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2019 during the first ten months of 2022, according to a Dice report, and businesses struggled to fill in-demand tech roles. This led many businesses and organizations to rethink hiring requirements and put more emphasis on building a larger tech workforce.
The tech unemployment remained low in January, falling to 1.5%, and continued to sit well below the national average, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Organizations and government leaders have worked to bring more workers into tech fields through hands-on education and reducing degree requirements.
Coke Florida, the third largest privately held Coca-Cola bottler serving 47 Florida counties, plans to facilitate hands-on intelligent automation training and invest more than $150,000 in laptop donations, computer lab upgrades and technology training for hundreds of Florida students as part of its Black History Month celebration, the company announced earlier this month.
Government leaders across the country eliminated degree requirements on job postings to lower the barrier to entry. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order that removed college degree requirements for approximately 65,000 government jobs in January. Utah Governor Spencer Cox also launched a skills-first hiring initiative in December.
Maryland last year eliminated the four-year degree requirement for thousands of state jobs and started an initiative to hire job seekers aged 25 or older with a high school diploma or equivalent experience through community college, apprenticeships, military service, boot camps or on-the-job training.
