Narayan AmmachchiGoogle will fund IT skill training for as many as 120,000 people in four Latin American countries, a 20% increase from the 100,000 grants the tech giant awarded last year.
Mexico will get the lion’s share, with 95,000 scholarships, according to Ramiro Sanchez, Google’s marketing director in Latin America. Chile, Colombia and Argentina will share the remaining scholarships.
This is an online training program designed to help people develop the skills they need to get jobs in high-growth fields, such as data analytics, IT support, project management, user experience design, digital marketing and e-commerce.
The program can be completed in as little as six months and requires no prior technology experience.
The scholarship covers the cost of tuition, books and access to Google’s online learning resources.
The Silicon Valley firm claims its skill training program has been very successful, particularly in Mexico, where the unemployment rate for people with a Google Career Certificate is less than 2%.
As in other parts of the world, a shortage of tech talent is hampering economic growth in Latin America. A recent Coursera study found that 70% of employers in the region have difficulty finding qualified tech talent.
Google has partnered with universities and nonprofit organizations to identify eligible candidates for the training program.
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