Want to learn to code? Get a job at General Electric. CEO Jeff Immelt tells Vanity Fair that new hires, including the 4,000 to 5,000 college graduates hired each year, will now learn to code as part of a larger overhaul to the century-old company. "It doesn't matter whether you are in sales, finance, or operations. You may not end up being a programmer, but you will know how to code," he adds in a LinkedIn post, per CNNMoney.
Why code? "The new middle-class job is a programmer, a data scientist," Immelt says. While he says manufacturing jobs will continue to be important, "I think it's much harder to find a really great middle-class job … with an associate's degree today." The company also plans to "use technology to help our people to stay connected," Immelt says. "We need to move quickly, take risks, fail fast, and behave like a startup to keep winning." (More General Electric stories.)