For years, employers have warned that they are struggling to fill open roles because of a so-called “skills gap” between the qualifications today’s job-seekers have and the ones that companies need to stay competitive.
The nature of the “skills gap” has been called into question lately. Yet as economist James Bessen pointed out in the Harvard Business Review, the most real, persistent, and widespread gaps have to do with finding workers who can make the most of new technologies.
Indeed, in a rapidly digitizing economy, according to the Brookings Institute, “workers of every stripe … are now spending sizable portions of their workdays using tools that require digital skills.”
Unsurprisingly, companies are increasing their investments in tech-focused last-mile training and upskilling. Tech Crunch reported a rise in last-mile training providers across almost every sector, and many large corporations are investing multi-millions of dollars into technologically upskilling their existing workforce. For example, Amazon recently announced that it was investing $700 million to upskill one-third of its US workforce for more technical roles, including machine learning and software engineering.
The case for independent contractor certifications and training
However, most of these solutions are targeted at training full-time employees, in the hopes of filling full-time positions.
As such, they sideline one of the labor pools that’s most interested in working with cutting-edge technology—and most invested in learning what they need to accomplish this—namely freelancers in the gig economy. According to Upwork research, freelancers are more proactive about updating their skills than non-freelancers. In fact, 70% of full-time freelancers participated in skills training and independent contractor certifications in the past six months, compared to 49% of full-time non-freelancers.
That’s why we are excited to announce Business Talent Group’s new, visionary partnership with General Assembly (GA), a pioneer in education and career transformation specializing in today’s most in-demand skills.
BTG’s network of highly skilled independent talent will have preferential access to GA’s learning and credentialing opportunities, while top-tier GA graduates will gain entry to BTG’s vast talent pool. As a result, BTG’s clients, which include more than 40% of the Fortune 100, will benefit from an expanded and diversified pool of credentialed on-demand experts.
Digital marketing and data science skills training and IC certifications will be the first area of focus between the two companies, with plans to expand the partnership into other in-demand areas in the near future.
To learn more about this partnership, check out the press release.
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