Meet Ponte Labor, a startup matching Hispanic immigrants to jobs using WhatsApp

While working on their MBAs at Harvard Business School, Colombian immigrants Stephanie Murra and Lorenza Vélez noticed that most of the workers in the cafeteria were Hispanic. In conversations with them, a common theme kept coming up: how difficult it was for people who legally moved to the U.S. from Spanish-speaking countries to find their first jobs in the United States. Not speaking English well or at all, unsurprisingly, was the biggest challenge. “But then we’re looking at the news and seeing that the U.S. is actually facing an unprecedented labor shortage, especially for these types of positions where you would usually see low-skilled immigrant workers,” Murra told TechCrunch in an interview. “So we were like, ‘Ok, there’s definitely an issue here.’” The roommates began doing research and realized that many potential employers would use traditional job boards like Indeed, which is “not meant for Hispanic immigrants,” Murra said. “These workers, many of whom don’t speak English ... Read full article.