NYC should follow the private sector and drop the need for a college degree for some posts

Tens of thousands of skilled New Yorkers have been shut out of good jobs that could lift themselves and their families out of poverty, simply because they don’t meet often unnecessary degree requirements for the positions they seek. This contributes to the deep inequalities that are still too prevalent in New York City’s economy. There’s now a giant opportunity to change this: by expanding skills-based hiring, the practice in which employers eliminate degree requirements for some jobs and instead hire based on an assessment of skills.

In a city where 2.3 million people lack a college credential, shifting to skills-based hiring — even if only for a fraction of jobs in the city’s economy — would open up countless well-paying jobs to New Yorkers who would otherwise be excluded for lack of a specific credential. A skills-first approach to hiring would also help far more New Yorkers of color get on the path to the middle class. Right now, just 25% of Hispanic New Yorkers and 30% of Black New Yorkers have at least a bachelor’s degree (compared to 68% of white New Yorkers).

While earning a college credential is still essential for many jobs in today’s economy, there is now compelling evidence that many occupations could be ably filled by workers who bring considerable skills to the role but are too often screened out because the hiring process doesn’t adequately assess underlying skills. This isn’t just limited to clerical or blue-collar fields, it includes many well-paying positions in industries from tech and finance to health care and government.

Momentum is building behind this idea. A growing number of private sector employers including IBM, Accenture, Google, Amazon, Ernst & Young, Penguin Random House, Starbucks, and the health care start-up Ovia Health — have eliminated a bachelor’s degree requirement for a range of entry- and mid-level positions. These companies are shifting toward skills-based frameworks for assessing the ability of prospective employees to succeed. According to a recent report, 19% of job postings nationwide no longer require degrees, up from 15% in 2021.

But we still have a long way to go in New York. Locally, only a handful of the city’s largest employers have embraced a skills-first approach.

This is where our elected officials must take the lead.

While many more private sector employers will need to step up and embrace skills-based hiring, city government should get the ball rolling and lead by example. Removing degree requirements for even a fraction of the more than 330,000 city government jobs would open up hundreds or even thousands of well-paying public sector jobs to New Yorkers that have been shut out of these opportunities.

In the past couple of years, the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Utah and Alaska have taken bold steps to eliminate the four-year college degree requirement for thousands of state government jobs, making those positions accessible to residents who have relevant experience or training, but not a college degree. Mayor Adams should make New York the first major municipality to shift towards the skills-first approach.

In addition to helping the city address near-record high employee shortages, this action would also elevate the visibility and profile of skills-based hiring at a time when few employers in the city have even heard about the practice. A city commitment to removing degree requirements signals to employers that skills-based hiring is a legitimate option in their hiring toolkit — and complement the city’s efforts to strengthen talent pipelines for New Yorkers without college degrees. It will also create a blueprint that private-sector companies can use to implement the practice in their own hiring processes.

The approach benefits not only potential employees, but employers as well. Shifting to a skills-first approach will result in a larger and more diverse talent pool from which to hire, with better retention over time. At a time when a number of employers in both the public and private sector have been struggling to fill open positions, this could prove to be immensely valuable.

Research shows that expanding the talent search to include workers with relevant skills leads to a 19-fold increase in eligible workers across all jobs. It has also been shown that hiring for skills is five times more predictive of job performance than hiring for education, and more than two times more predictive than hiring for work experience.

There is an incredible opportunity right now to expand skills-based hiring in New York City. Leadership from the mayor could be the spark that ignites this movement locally, expanding access to middle-class jobs for many more New Yorkers.

Bowles is the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future.