While she’s in between accounting jobs, Leslie Fong is working to enhance her Excel skills through advanced online classes at the South San Francisco library.
“They are stellar,” she said about the library. “I’ve never gone to a place with so many free offerings of classes. They are my salvation.”
Libraries have long helped job hunters as part of their mission as community hubs linking people to essential services and resources.
Now the state’s libraries are adding a broad array of free software to help patrons learn new vocational and academic skills, earn professional certificates and prepare for in-demand jobs. It comes at a crucial time as workers returning from pandemic layoffs seek new positions, 1.4 million Californians are unemployed, and 4.8 million are “functionally unemployed,” meaning they do not have stable jobs paying above the poverty level, according to a new study.
Keep reading this article at msn.com.