Tech Companies Try to Retrain the Workers They're Displacing

On January 16, a new course launched on the online learning platform Coursera with an unassuming name: The Google IT Support Professional Certificate. It promised to prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in IT in eight to 12 months. That day, it attracted the largest-ever group of first-time Coursera users, almost half of them people without college degrees. More than 18,000 people have enrolled in the $49-a-month program so far, 160 of whom have completed it. "Even as we were building it, even as it was about to launch, I never anticipated the success of it," says Natalie Van Kleef Conley, Google's product lead for the program.