The White House announced a slew of new initiatives and partnerships on Wednesday that back up its continuing push toward expanding the Federal workforce while reducing barriers to hiring people without college degrees.
At its Classroom to Career Summit on Nov. 13, the Biden administration said that some agencies – such as the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy (DoE) – will be removing certain degree requirements and instead be taking a skills-based hiring approach.
The approach de-emphasizes educational degrees and prescribed years of experience, and instead focuses on having the skill sets required for certain jobs.
In 2022, just over half of the U.S. population over the age of 25 had completed some college or less, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
GSA, the White House said, will remove “unnecessary degree and experience requirements” for IT cybersecurity jobs at its master contract level, which will be applied to roughly $100 billion in task orders. The approach will also be used in its planned Polaris and Alliant 3 government wide contracts, the White House said.
The DoE will modify its agency-wide IT contract by removing degree requirements for cyber and IT jobs, which the White House said will impact over a thousand full-time positions by December of this year.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Federal government is leading the way in implementing skills-based practices, opening up pathways to good-paying jobs for more Americans by valuing their skills and abilities – regardless how they acquired those skills,” the White House’s summit fact sheet said.
Other strides the Biden administration is taking toward developing the workforce include continuing to expand workforce hubs – regional partnerships designed to connect workers to high-demand jobs through training and Federal investments – and building up the semiconductor industry.
The Upstate New York Hub will scale its partnership with AFT’s Advanced Technology Framework to include the Michigan Hub and Minnesota after recently receiving a $1.7 million grant from Natcast – which was established by the CHIPS and Science Act. The partnership provides semiconductor technical education for high school students.
“[Jobs at fabs] pay about an average of $105,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree to get there,” said President Biden in remarks at the summit.
Additional actions and new commitments on workforce development were announced at the summit, including community college training and registered apprenticeships.
