In New York, new tech industry jobs are becoming more readily available. However, a study conducted by nonprofit research group, Urban Future, shows that many locals may miss out on opportunities to seize the job opportunities because of a lack of training. The study further predicts that many New Yorkers could be left behind as new residents who relocated for work would cause increased housing prices and cost of living. The study does provide some hope, pointing to nonprofit company, Per Scholas, as a potential solution for closing the opportunity gap and helping more locals better prepare themselves for careers in the tech industry. Per Scholas offers free technology training courses that last about 15 to 19 weeks. The nonprofit trains its students for jobs in technology-support, cybersecurity, cloud computing, software engineering and data engineering. As big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple continue to add office space for their expected 20,000 additional employees to be hired by 2022, they will need to look beyond the traditional sources of recruiting and begin looking at local people without college degrees. For companies like Per Scholas, which has seen its enrollment triple since 2015, they will continue to be relied upon to help close the training gap for tech jobs in New York.
