Google to help one million Europeans find jobs by 2020

SAN FRANCISCO: As part of its "Grow with Google" project, the technology giant has pledged to help one million Europeans find a job or grow their businesses by 2020, the company said in a blog post.

"This commitment goes beyond our previous pledge to help people develop digital skills to ensure that we support trainees as they put those skills to use in building careers and businesses," said Matt Brittin, President (Business and Operations) at Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Launched in 2015 the "Grow with Google" project, has until now trained three million Europeans and more than two million people in Africa in digital skills. 

"Grow with Google aims to help everyone in Europe get access to training and products to grow their skills, career, or business, and we'll continue to partner with governments, city councils, universities, private-sector businesses and non-profits through the support of Google.org to achieve this," Brittin said.

In 2016, Google launched an independent research to know whether the digital skills training alone can translate into economic impact and improve prospects for those people who invest their time. 

Over 1,90,000 Europeans have found a job or started a business following training on the project.

While more than half a million European businesses have grown their business through new customers or revenue, 32,000 small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) have taken on more staff, the research revealed.

As part of the new commitment, in Italy, "Crescere in Digitale", a partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Chamber of Commerce, will activate 5,000 more internships for young unemployed people at SMBs by 2020, which can lead to full-time employment. 

In Spain, Google launched a digital skills employment programme with the Government and in Germany they continue to work with Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) on their "Open Roberta programme" teaching young women how to code.