PayPal bringing back women after career breaks

Chennai: Aiming to reduce the gender gap and to encourage female employees, PayPal launched the second edition of its Recharge programme to recruit female software professionals who took a break from their careers, after imparting technical skills to them.

Jayanthi Vaidyanathan, Director - Human Resources, PayPal, herself faced issues when she took a career break a few years back. She is one among those who spearheaded the year-old programme and saw this as a great idea to encourage women who wanted to return to work but failed to find opportunities.
Recharge involves training the selected women from among the applicants on technologies, languages, programmes and soft skills during the boot camp period, after which they have to get through interviews. Selected participants would be joining PayPal.

"Data shows that about 42 percent of women drop out of their careers due to many reasons. Though during placements, 50 per cent of the employees joining are females, they leave their jobs over the years, and face challenges when they try to rejoin the workforce," Jayanthi said.