Google committing to White House job training initiative

Tech giant Google will announce its intention on Thursday to join a White House initiative aimed at getting more private companies in the U.S. to offer job training for American workers, The Associated Press reports.

CEO Sundar Pichai will make the announcement at a community college in Dallas.

Accompanying him will be President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who oversees the White House’s work training initiatives. 

In planned remarks obtained by the AP, Pichai says, “Today I am proud to join more than 350 American businesses in signing ’The Pledge to America’s Workers.’ This will take Google’s commitment even further by creating 250,000 new training opportunities for American workers over the next five years.”

Since the pledge was introduced in mid-2018, over 350 companies have committed to training over 14 million students and workers.

The idea behind the pledge is to increase the number of qualified workers in the country’s workforce.

As of September, more than 7 million job openings existed in the U.S., according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition to signing the pledge, Google is also planning on expanding its already-implemented work program that trains Americans without a college degree for entry-level IT support jobs in under six months.