Google announces Career Certificates in bid to upskilling workforce

In a bid to bridge the skill gap across sectors, Google has initiated enrollments for its Google Career Certificates. The tech giant is offering Google Career Certificates in the fields of data analytics, project management, and user experience (UX) design.

With more businesses embracing digital ways of working, it’s estimated that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a blog post on March 11. According to the tech giant, 82% of graduates say the programme helped them advance their career within six months, including getting a raise, finding a new job, or starting a new business.

In an effort to prepare learners for entry-level jobs in Android development, Google also announced its Associate Android Developer Certification.

“In India, we’re working to make certificates more accessible and launch an employer consortium. And in addition to our Career Certificates, today we’re also making our cloud computing, big data and machine learning trainings free for US job seekers to help prepare for jobs in these high-growth fields,” Pichai said in the blog post.

Google said that around 130 employers have already become part of the employer consortium. Infosys, Deloitte, Accenture, Walmart, Verizon, Anthem are among the few big names. Graduates can directly send their resumes to these companies.

Google is also looking to upskill and reskill its own staff. “We’re also opening applications for Google’s apprenticeship program in our Career Certificate fields in addition to a few other professional tracks. We will hire hundreds of apprentices over the coming years to participate in on-the-job training and applied learning,” according to the blog post.