Report: ‘Credentials inflation’ locking people out of good jobs

[LuckyTheDog]

It just keeps getting harder for Americans to get into the middle class and stay there. New research finds that a trend toward “credentials inflation” is keeping otherwise qualified people out of good jobs simply because the potential applicants do not have bachelor’s degrees.

According to the report, published Boston-based Burning Glass Technologies:

--Employers now require bachelor’s degrees for a wide range of jobs, but the shift has been dramatic for some of the occupations historically dominated by workers without a college degree. The credential gap can amount to 25 percentage points or more for middle skill jobs in some occupational families, like office and administrative and business and financial operations. For example, 65 percent of postings for Executive Secretaries and Executive Assistants now call for a bachelor’s degree. Only 19 percent of those currently employed in these roles have a B.A.

MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/report-credentials-inflation-locks-people-good-jobs/

[tblue37]

1. KnR. I will probably write a long reply to this important post later, but for now,

I am kicking and recommending for visibility.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. A college degree is the price you pay for a job out of the rain.

employers demand huge amounts of arbitrary education for executive assistants because they can; it's a simple way to weed out applicants.

If you want a middle class life without the college debt, constrain your job search to small companies in your hometown, jobs in which a personal relationship with the decisionmaker gets you in the door.

[NYC_SKP]

3. It's a filter, IMO. A degree today is the equivalent to a high school diploma in the 1960s.

Businesses need people who can read and write, and many high school grads simply can't do these things at the required level of skill.

Further, having completed something like a degree program indicates perseverance and some other desirable qualities.

I'm not saying this is fair, I'm just calling it like I see it having talked to folks at many WIBs and EOCs, high schools and colleges.

Our entry level workforce is poorly trained and inexperienced.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

4. But it's ridiculous to load up on debt for these jobs

We need more affordable community colleges and state trade and technical schools, and they should be free at the point of delivery. If we had more affordable post high school education, everyone would benefit.

As an aside, my husband and I are in a position that we pay for our kids to attend the local community college while they work and save for their transfer to a state university (where they continue to work). At that point, we help minimally with living expenses, but they take out the loans. I wish all students could graduate with less debt like they have.

[NYC_SKP]

5. I fully agree. We should have, really, free education through college.

I completed high school and then mixed junior college classes with work until I knew what I wanted to study.

I was lucky enough to learn of a school with an endowment and completed a five year program under full scholarship, but still had to work to pay NYC rent (very cheap apartment).

Shame that the founder of that school doesn't have equivalents among the rich today.

The Kochs and Gates, et al., could fund quite a number of free schools but they don't think the way that philanthropists like Carnegie did back then.

[phil89]

6. Online "college" isn't helping

Nt

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

7. But it does have it's place

imo.

But I would happily banish the "for profits."

[Sopkoviak]

8. If burger flipping french fry scooping picture pushing order taking starts paying $15 an hour

That's going to be attractive to many of today's college grads which in turn will make a degree a necessity to getting hired.

Of course that'll leave the inexperienced unskilled under-educated workers out in the cold again.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. yes! it's gotten crazy

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Our schools have quit teaching skills like cursive

and general business/work ethics. They teach to the test now, and it has caused people's potential skill sets to wither on the vine.

Nary an Executive is going to hire an assistant that can't read his chicken scratching done on a cocktail napkin or back of an envelope during a lunch meeting.

[Brickbat]

11. Part of the problem is that there are fewer "good jobs."