Building a Broader Labor Force
A Latin American startup is teaching young women to code.
Students pay $6 a month and agree to contribute 10 percent of their salary for three years after graduating.
Courtesy LaboratoriaThis article is for subscribers only.
Less than a year ago, Lorena Torres was earning about $200 a month, making chocolates at home that her boyfriend sold aboard jam-packed, dilapidated buses clogging the streets of Lima. “I was in a bad place,” she says. “I felt badly for not having work, for wanting to get ahead and not being able to.”
These days, Torres works in front-end Web development at the industrial-chic offices of digital marketing giant Wunderman Phantasia. She’s earning twice as much since hanging up her apron, a lot closer to the country’s $524 average monthly wage, and her boss says her position and earning power have room to grow.