NPower Canada, in collaboration with Microsoft, announced new digital training and career development opportunities to help Quebec job-seekers compete. Building on the Canadian Tech Talent Accelerator, launched in January 2021, training will focus on equipping participants with the in-demand skills needed to thrive in today's digital economy. Since the inception of NPower Canada's Quebec site in November 2022, 415 job-seekers from the province have found meaningful employment in the technology sector, due in part to Microsoft's support.

In January 2021, the Canadian Tech Talent Accelerator (CTTA), a program designed to bridge the talent gap in Canada by providing underserved job-seekers with in-demand digital skills, certifications, and career development support was launched by NPower Canada, Microsoft, DIGITAL and Blueprint. In the fall of 2022, a significant investment from DIGITAL, Microsoft and the CIBC Foundation supported the establishment of NPower Canada's first bilingual site for in-person training in Quebec, allowing their TechPathways program to be accessible to both anglophone and francophone job-seekers in the province. Now, NPower Canada will offer even more opportunities for career growth in Quebec, leveraging Microsoft's best-in-class curricula to launch its intermediate Junior Data Analyst program in the province.

The program will be extended to French-speaking job-seekers in Quebec, and applications are now open for the inaugural cohort starting in May 2024. The program, co-sponsored and developed with Microsoft, equips participants with Microsoft's Azure AI Fundamentals certifications, a qualification that will prepare job-seekers with essential skills for digitally-enabled careers. The CTTA's impact is set to expand further, with Microsoft, DIGITAL, and the CIBC Foundation recently announcing a continued co-investment of $2 million to scale the CTTA, aiming to launch more than 6,000 job-seekers across Canada, including Quebec, into meaningful careers in the ever-growing tech sector.

According to CBRE's 2023 Scoring Tech Talent Report, Montreal now ranks as the 12th largest tech market across Canada and the U.S., underscoring the need for job-seekers and workers in the province to be equipped with the skills necessary to excel in the growing digital and AI-enabled economy.