IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
The Obama Administration has added Riverside to its program that trains people to land jobs in information technology.
The city’s inclusion in TechHire was announced last week in a 22-page statement released by the White House.
Fifty communities throughout the United States are now participating in TechHire, more than double the number that were involved when the program started one year ago, according to the statement.
Today there are more than 500,000 open jobs are in technology fields like cybersecurity and software development. Many of those jobs didn’t exist 10 years ago, and pay for a technology-related job can be 50 percent more than an average private sector job, according to the statement.
TechHire brings together local government, educators and the private sector. Every effort is made to educate people as quickly as possible so they can land a job in a short period of time, and non-traditional education methods are used whenever possible.
TechHire will be a boost for Riverside, and the Inland Empire in general, if it keeps local businesses from having to go outside the area to hire people for tech-related jobs, said Mike Stull, a business professor and director of the Inland Empire Center of Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino.
“This is the first I’ve heard of [TechHire], but if it keeps that trend from happening, great,” Stull said. “The question with any program like this is whether it fills a need in the market. In the case of the Inland Empire I’m not sure what the demand is.”
Riverside is the only California city among the 15 additions that were announced Wednesday.
