Google’s ‘Digital Garage’ initiative offers free digital skills training to small business owners in areas such as writing for social media, analytics and sales.

Toby Perkins MP, who is the Shadow Minister for Skills & Further Education, opened the Google Digital Garage event at the Casa Hotel in Chesterfield on Friday 18^th November, and joined local businesses for a day of workshops, peer networking sessions & 1-to-1 mentoring from Google.

Toby said, “It was great to welcome Google here in Chesterfield as part of their Google Digital Garage tour and I was really pleased to see so many local businesses and residents attend to hear from their fantastic Digital Garage trainers.

As Shadow Minister for FE & Skills, I regularly meet with business owners and industry leaders and I know that digital skills are vital to the growth of businesses and our economy. Digital skills can help SMEs and independent traders to reach new customers and compete with larger companies. Businesses are also much more likely to employ people with strong digital skills.

It was great to hear about how local businesses and my constituents plan to use the skills learnt today, and to see first-hand the importance of improving digital skills.”

Over the last five years the Google Digital Garage programme has trained over 800,000 small businesses and individuals, providing free digital skills training in person and online across more than 500 cities, towns and villages. There are over a hundred free on-demand training courses as well as interactive webinars.

Toby added, “It has been an incredibly tough time for small businesses over the last few years due to the pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and rising energy costs. I welcome any support to help business owners to develop the skills to make their business a success and thank Google for providing this free training.”