Too Few Middle-Skills Credentials to Meet Future Job Demand

A new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that colleges and other credential providers aren’t producing enough credentials that lead to well-paying, middle-skills jobs to satisfy employer demand in many metro areas across the country.

The report, published today, defines high-paying middle-skills jobs as those that require an associate degree or credential, but not a bachelor’s degree, and in which more than half of early-career workers earn at least $53,000 per year. Such jobs span a wide range, from firefighters to software developers to radiologic technicians. The report found that out of 343 credential providers, 311 of them, or 91 percent, would need to more than double the number of credentials they award in such fields to avoid local shortages in the future.

Zack Mabel, lead author and director of research at CEW, said even though more fields now require bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees and other credentials still aren’t keeping up with job demand. He believes extensive mismatches between credentials and unfilled jobs will hurt individual workers, employers and local economies down the line if left unaddressed.

One possible consequence for metro areas is “suppressed economic growth—employers not being able to hire for the skilled talent that they need, and therefore potentially not being able to grow economies at the rate that they otherwise would,” he said. That could motivate employers to move their businesses elsewhere, lessening opportunities for local workers.

He also sees these gaps between credentials and well-paid, middle-skills jobs as a “missed opportunity” to “promote economic mobility and to give individuals the adequate knowledge, skills and training to compete for the jobs that are high quality, that provide strong earnings” and often employer-provided benefits.

Melissa Johnson, managing director of state strategies at the National Skills Coalition, said the data outlined in the report is consistent with what her organization is seeing and especially relevant at a time when the federal government has made some major investments in infrastructure and manufacturing jobs, including the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“There’s a role for data to play in terms of making sure that the policy landscape can support people actually earning and attaining those credentials,” she said.

The Breakdown

The report explores the extent of the misalignment between credentials awarded and future jobs in high-paying, middle-skills fields in 55 major metro areas, based on U.S. Department of Labor data.

It found that the most extensive and severe shortages were in blue-collar jobs, such as construction supervisors and equipment operators. Nationally, if nothing changes, credentials offered in these fields will only meet 13 percent of total projected annual demand for such jobs in 2032, the report says. Nearly all the metro areas evaluated—52 out of 55—would be headed for a credential shortage, where the credentials awarded will satisfy less than 35 percent of local projected annual job demand.

“I think one of the things we’re really witnessing is the consequence of sort of a long-standing stigmatization of those [skilled trade] professions, the ‘college for all’ mantra that the bachelor’s degree is the gold standard and everything else is less than,” Mabel said. As a result, “there’s a dramatic underproduction of credentials in those programs.”

The report predicts most metro areas can similarly expect “moderate to severe” credential shortages for well-paying management jobs that don’t require a four-year degree. Nationwide, the credential supply for these positions is only predicted to meet half of projected annual job demand in 2032. That comes out to an annual projected shortage of at least 250,000 credentials.

A bright spot in the report found that most metro areas are producing enough credentials to train people for STEM-focused middle-skills jobs that pay well, like software developers and civil engineers. In fact, in 40 of the 55 metro areas analyzed, STEM credentials were projected to exceed future job demand. But nationally, the report still predicted shortages. The annual supply of credentials is only expected to meet 60 percent of future projected annual demand for jobs in these fields, at least 87,000 credentials short of what’s needed.

Mabel noted that STEM credential programs are often expensive for colleges to provide, which may get in the way of them expanding. Such programs can require pricey laboratories and equipment, and colleges have to offer instructors salaries high enough to compete with industry jobs. He said this dynamic is one example of the “multidimensional nature” of the credentials-to-jobs misalignment problem.

The report highlighted health care as the only field with an expected oversupply of credentials relative to well-paying jobs available for middle-skills workers. Nationally, credentials awarded would overshoot future annual projected demand by 77 percent, or at least 59,000 credentials annually.

This oversupply issue isn’t because high demand for, say, registered nurses has eased, Mabel said. He believes it’s partly because health employers are increasingly hiring registered nurses with bachelor’s degrees when, historically, those jobs were open to people with associate degrees. The proportion of workers without bachelor’s degrees working in health-care fields dropped from 46 percent in 2010 to 25 percent in 2022, and they’re expected to only make up 10 percent if the trends continue, according to the report.

As demand for health-care workers grows, employers are either going to have to start hiring registered nurses without bachelor’s degrees again or universities need to “dramatically” ramp up the number of nurses graduating with bachelor’s degrees, Mabel said.

Exploring Solutions

The data in the report is intended to open discussion among college leaders, employers and state policymakers about potential solutions to these misalignments between credentials and open jobs. The report comes with an online data tool that allows people to parse the data by region or look at how much a particular college is contributing to the middle-skills credentials needed in a particular field.

Mabel said bridging the gaps between the credentials produced and future job demand is going to require a multifaceted approach involving “multiple players.” He hopes community colleges expand their credential offerings in the fields that need it. But he also recognizes they have limited capacity and wants to see universities, employers and community-based organizations step up to help with training and making credentials available.

Johnson of the National Skills Coalition said providing supports like on-campus childcare and funds for transportation can also go a long way toward attracting students to middle-skills credential programs and ensuring equitable access to them. Such services also make students more likely to complete the programs, she added.

“If we don’t invest in education [and] training support systems, we not only risk not being able to fill those jobs and fulfill the function of those jobs, but also leaving workers behind and perpetuating inequalities in access to new job opportunities,” Johnson said.

She also believes state policymakers can undertake initiatives to reduce barriers for students to pursue these kinds of credentials. For example, she praised Reconnect programs in Michigan and Tennessee that allow adult residents to attend community colleges tuition-free.

“There’s that role for state policy to play in addition to what needs to be done on an institutional level,” she said.