Helping people acquire skills they need

The world of work is changing. Jobs in every field are increasingly digital. And over 149 million new tech jobs are estimated to emerge by 2025 in areas like Software Development, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and much more.

Education’s role in preparing students to be future-ready has never been more important. People are eager to learn new skills, especially digital skills. In the past year, more than 35,000 people from Sri Lanka and the Maldives engaged with our free courses on LinkedIn Learning. 

Introducing LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn recently identified 10 jobs that are in-demand in today’s economy and are well positioned to continue to grow in the future. 

These 10 jobs were identified as having the greatest number of job openings, have had steady growth over the past four years, pay a livable wage, and require skills that can be learned online. We then identified the key horizontal skills that are most widely in demand and created learning paths for these jobs through LinkedIn Learning. 

Each learning path includes a sequence of video content aimed at helping individuals broadly develop the core skills needed for a given role. All you need to do to get started is visit opportunity.linkedin.com to see current job opportunities and the different learning paths available.

The 10 role-based learning paths are: 

1. Software Developer

2. Sales Representative

3. Project Manager

4. IT administrator

5. Customer Service Specialist

6. Digital Marketing Specialist

7. IT support/Help Desk   

8. Data Analyst

9. Financial Analyst

10. Graphic Designer

For each of the 10 role-based learning paths, people will have free access to rich and comprehensive content from the LinkedIn Learning library of courses, all taught by industry-expert instructors. And at the end of each path, job seekers will receive a certificate of completion, which they can post on their LinkedIn profile to let recruiters and their network know about their acquired skills.

Hard times demand soft skills

We are also making available for free four learning paths focused on helping professionals come up to speed on their soft skills as quickly as possible: 

1. Finding a Job During Challenging Economic Times

2. Master In-Demand Professional Soft Skills

3. Digital Transformation in Practice: Virtual Collaboration Tools

4. Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging for All

These learning paths cover a broad range of skills—from entry-level digital literacy to advanced product-based skilling for technology roles—which provide numerous opportunities for people to reskill and upskill, placing roles that are in-demand within reach of millions of job seekers. 

Cloud Skills challenge Sri Lanka

To help inspire Sri Lanka’s next generation workforce, we recently launched our Cloud Skills Challenge (CSC) in the hopes of enhancing data and AI skills and employability. 

The CSC is a training experience where learners can follow pre-determined course paths that link Microsoft Learn modules based on their topics, like Azure fundamentals, machine learning, or Power Platform. 

The combination of the gamified learning elements and guided paths built on top of the flexible Microsoft Learn modules will allow students to skill at their own pace, but with fun objectives and logical learning paths. 

By working together and helping those whose jobs have been impacted by the COVID-19 economic crisis, we can make a difference right now in the workforce, in the economy, and in our everyday lives.

(The writer is Country Manager, Microsoft Sri Lanka and Maldives)