Jul 17, 2020
World faces staggering jobs challenge, says Microsoft president
The world is facing a staggering jobs challenge with a quarter of a billion people set to lose their job this year, the president of Microsoft has said. Brad Smith says millions will need to learn new skills to get jobs, or even to hang on to their old one, as the digitisation of economies races ahead. Microsoft recently announced a plan to deliver skills and training to 25 million people globally this year. Mr Smith admitted that many jobs in many countries would be beyond the reach of digital retraining. "We live in a world of internet inequality - if we don't do something about it we are going to exacerbate all the other inequalities that we all worry about. This is a task beyond any one company or any one government but if we can reach 25 million people we will feel like we are doing our part." Microsoft will spend $20m on this programme, which will strike many as fairly small given this is a company whose value has increased by $500bn in the past year.
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