Salesforce.com signs on to White House job-training initiative
(Reuters) - San Francisco-based cloud software company Salesforce.com Inc on Thursday said it was joining a White House initiative to provide training for new skills to U.S. workers.
The company, which makes Internet-based software used by the sales and marketing departments of businesses, said it would provide online training for up to 500,000 workers to get jobs that involve Salesforce's software systems. The company did not say how much money it planned to dedicate to the effort.
The White House's "Pledge to America's Workers" initiative was launched last year, with more than 200 companies participating in the program.
Salesforce said that Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff planned to announce the news at an event with Ivanka Trump in Indiana, where Salesforce has nearly 2,000 employees.
Benioff, who last year bought Time magazine, is known for his support for progressive policies. Last year, he broke with fellow technology billionaires to support a tax increase on large businesses in San Francisco to raise funding to address homelessness in the city. San Francisco voters approved the tax.
Salesforce faced criticism from a Texas immigrant rights group last year because it provides software to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Benioff publicly responded that the company's philanthropic arm had donated more than $1 million to groups helping migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Shreejay Sinha)
