Expanding Access to State Jobs
Expanding Access to State Jobs
Testimony of Julia Pollak
Chief Economist, ZipRecruiter
Submitted to the Committee on Public Employment and Retirement
California State Assembly
January 9, 2024
Chairperson McKinnor, Vice Chair Lackey, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony in support of AB 1693.
There are several compelling reasons to consider removing the bachelor’s degree as a requirement for state jobs.
The first is that the requirement is exclusionary, eliminating from consideration 64% of the state’s working-age population, including about two thirds of military veterans and workers aged 55 and older1, many of whom have completed equivalent training and acquired valuable skills and experience.
The second is that the requirement is often irrelevant. The Burning Glass Institute has conducted extensive research on “middle-skill occupations,” defined as positions requiring some education or training beyond high-school, but short of a college degree. That category applies to many state jobs. The research found that skills requirements do not differ significantly between those jobs with and without degree requirements2.
The third is that the requirement is costly. Requiring degrees as a prerequisite for employment can place a financial burden on candidates that is later passed onto the state in the form of higher than necessary employee compensation costs.
The fourth is that there are alternative gauges of candidate skill. Those include occupational licenses, online certificate programs, and skills assessments administered during the hiring process.
It is for these reasons that eight state governments (including Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), numerous local governments, and hundreds of major companies (including IBM, Dell, and Bank of America) have already dropped degree requirements for most jobs.
In a recent survey of employers conducted by my team at ZipRecruiter, 72% of employers reported practicing skills-based hiring, prioritizing skills over degrees, and 45% reported having dropped degree requirements for some roles in just the last year.3
Removing an exclusionary, irrelevant, costly, and unnecessary barrier to entry could provide state agencies with an opportunity to alleviate staffing shortages and improve public service delivery, while building a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
1 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2022 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC)
2 The Burning Glass Institute, “The Emerging Degree Reset,” February 9, 2023, https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/research/the-emerging-degree-reset
3 ZipRecruiter Economic Research, “Beyond Degrees: Rethinking Qualifications in the Skills-First Era,” October 11, 2023, https://www.ziprecruiter-research.org/annual-employer-survey/beyond-degrees-rethinking-qualifications-in-the-skills-first-era
