If you're out of a job you may qualify for a scholarship to learn to code.
Codecademy is offering 100,000 scholarships to people around the world who have been laid off or furloughed.
"[It's] to help them gain new skills and get employed," said Zach Sims, CEO of Codecademy.
Codecademy teaches technology skills to level up in your career. The U.S. is 500,000 trained workers short in STEM careers, according to the Michigan STEM Partnership.
Sims says one scholarship recipient is using the time while he's furloughed to gain this new skill and possibly a new career.
"I got an email from Alan who's a worker in Mississippi who is working at a car factory," Sims explained. "This is how he's filling his days, how he still has meaning. He's already starting building things online and already started thinking of what's possible for him for jobs after this pandemic. When I think of great stories its things like that where people take adversity and they turn it into opportunity."
Coding is basically instructing a computer on what to do, but it's not just work in technology. Coding is used in industries being transformed by technology as well.
"Finance or people that work in marketing or people that work in data, but really everything," Sims said. "We have small businesses that learn how to build websites."
Lauren Wade runs a local small business that teaches coding to children, called Kids Can Code. You might remember her from when First Coast News talked to her last month about running a new business and waiting on her being coronavirus loan relief. She's still waiting for it.
However, Wade is confident this was a good industry to be in business since it grows as technology advances.
"There are so many jobs out there that are just screaming for people," Wade said.
She says coding is like learning a new language.
"Getting really good at a particular language can really help you in your job market and it's just fun," Wade said. "It's cool to learn a different language, to build a website, push a button, and go 'I did that!' It's amazing."
She's seen more parents sign their kids up to learn once they see just how far the skill can take them.
"Parents are starting to learn the importance of STEM careers and of coding and engineering, everything that I teach," Wade said. "I have seen a lot of kids where parents were like, 'oh we'd love to sign up but we're too busy with karate and basketball and all of this.' Now they're home and they're signing up and they're saying 'wait, wait, wait how a can we get more?'"
You can fill out an application for a scholarship at Codecademy's website. Wade is doing virtual classes at Kids Can Code and she is doing a coding boot camp through Jax Code Academy.
