Looking for bright spots in August's dismal jobs numbers
 CLOSING THE GAP Tuesday, September 14, 2021 
Hi! I'm excited to start contributing regularly to this newsletter, and wanted to introduce myself. I'm Julia Boorstin, CNBC's senior media & technology correspondent. When I'm not reporting on the likes of Facebook and Disney, you can find me working on CNBC's Disruptor 50 coverage of start-ups and innovative trends. My other passion is reporting on equity and inclusion: I helped launch CNBC's Closing the Gap franchise about five years ago. The intention of this initiative is to lay clear all the data about inequities in business so gaps can be closed. Instead of just dwelling on all the negative news about gender and diversity gaps and the decades it will take to end them, I believe it's particularly important to highlight the individuals, companies and organizations that are finding ways to close gaps and drive toward equity.
I'm fundamentally an optimistic person — always looking for progress toward a more equitable future. But I'll be the first to say that finding signs of hope during the pandemic has been tough; the headlines about myriad ways Covid has weighed more on working women, and particularly working mothers, are certainly dispiriting. Just take a look at the August jobs numbers: as the economy slowed, and added fewer new positions than expected, only 12% of those 235,000 new jobs added went to women.
But still, I see glimmers of hope, this week, in upskilling: the news about an increase in women's enrollment in online courses. My colleague Jennifer Liu wrote a great article about how women are increasingly enrolling in online learning courses and earning STEM certificates. The goal is to not only qualify for more jobs, but also open the door to more higher-paying positions. At Coursera (which was co-founded by a woman, Daphne Kohler), women's enrollment in entry-level professional certificate courses rose to 43% this year, up from 27% in 2019.
The trend toward upskilling — or educating workers with new skills — will help both the people doing it, and also corporate America, which is struggling with a labor shortage. Just last week Amazon announced it would cover the full cost of college tuition for its U.S. hourly employees. For the e-commerce giant this is a valuable way to attract employees. And for those workers, it could open the door to higher-paying jobs at Amazon or elsewhere.
Amazon is just the latest giant to dangle educational opportunities to lure workers. In July, Walmart offered to pay 100% of college tuition and books costs for its Walmart and Sam's Club associates. That was followed in August by Target announcing it would pay for the cost of degrees at select schools. The company behind the free college programs for both Walmart and Target is Guild Education, a two-time Disruptor 50 company, which enables companies to offer their workers debt-free access to degrees. Guild helps guide workers to find the best degrees and courses, with coaches to help them through the degrees. For companies, they offer access to the tax breaks that come with providing education as a benefit.
And Guild is co-founded by two women: CEO Rachel Carlson and Brittany Stich. Women are underrepresented among the leadership ranks of unicorns — Guild is valued at $3.75 billion. These women aren't just trying to make money, the company is a certified B corporation, which means it's committed to a business purpose as well as profits. Check out this interview with Carlson about the company's partnership with Target in August.
Are you prioritizing learning new skills to make a change in your career? If so, what new skills are you most focused on? Share your thoughts with us at askmakeit@cnbc.com.  More articles from Closing the Gap UK real estate agent wins over $250,000 after being refused 5 p.m. finish for child care UK real estate agent Alice Thompson has won nearly £185,000 ($254,478) in compensation from her former employer after the firm refused her request for flexible working hours following her return from maternity leave, which led her to resign. "I'd put my heart and soul into an estate agency career for more than decade in London, which is no mean feat because it's quite a male-dominated environment to work in," Thompson said. "I thought 'how are mums meant to have careers and families? It's 2021, it's not 1971.'" Steve Jobs helped launch her career. Now, her start-up brings in millions annually Plenty of start-up founders credit Jobs with inspiring them to take the entrepreneurial leap. Alina Vandenberghe is one of the precious few who can directly attribute her company's ethos to a personal interaction with the late Apple co-founder. Native American women lose nearly $1 million to the pay gap over their careers Native American women, on average, are paid approximately 60 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. Over the course of a 40-year career, this wage gap costs them $986,240. In 2021, this wage gap means that Native American women would need to work an additional eight months into the new year — until Sept. 8 — to earn as much as their white, male colleagues made in 2020.
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