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The White House Endorsed Skills-Based Hiring. Why Aren’t Workforce Wonks More Excited?

EdSurge

Rebecca Koenig
July 2, 2020
The idea that employers should hire workers because of their skills, not just their credentials, got a signal boost last week from the White House.
President Trump signed an executive order on June 26 directing the government to reduce the use of minimum education requirements for filling federal job opportunities, except for positions where such standards are legally mandated.
“Degree-based hiring is especially likely to exclude qualified candidates for jobs related to emerging technologies and those with weak connections between educational attainment and the skills or competencies required to perform them,” the order states. “Moreover, unnecessary obstacles to opportunity disproportionately burden low-income Americans and decrease economic mobility.”
The federal government is the nation’s largest employer, with more than 2 million civilian workers.
Proponents of alternative pathways to employment welcomed the announcement, such as Ginni Rometty, executive chairman at IBM, which has made a push to hire people who don’t have bachelor’s degrees for “new-collar jobs.”

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