In a Feb. 16 article in the U.S. newspaper Wall Street**, it mentioned a shocking statistic: 62% of Americans do not have a college degree. This number begs the question: will such a large group of non-university diplomas be able to solve the current labor shortage?
In fact, U.S. companies have long hired based on academic qualifications. However, with the growing labor shortage, some companies are starting to try to relax the standards for hiring. The abolition of academic qualifications has become a new trend. This undoubtedly gives a new opportunity to those who were once rejected by their academic qualifications.
The U.S. labor market faces many challenges, including the exit of baby boomers, declining fertility rates, and changes in immigration policies. In this case, the recruitment criteria had to be revisited. Many large corporations, such as Medtronic, IBM, Google, Walmart and General Motors, have removed educational requirements for many positions and are beginning to focus more on the skills and abilities of candidates.
The abolition of academic requirements has opened the door to more people. Benita Robinson is a success story, rising from assembly line worker to line leader and eventually line supervisor with a salary increase of up to 40 percent. This also reflects the results of a study that showed that after opening more jobs to a group with lower educational qualifications, employment in this group increased by 3 percent the following year5%。
However, the pace of change has been slow, even as companies have begun to ease restrictions on academic qualifications. Some management still have the inertia of thinking and regard academic qualifications as the primary criterion for measuring employees. Automated screening tools, the difficulty of assessing skill levels, and the enormous inertia of management are all factors that hinder change.
However, it turns out that not only people with college diplomas are able to excel at work. Melaine Argo, 35, has tried to enter the project management and information technology industries, but has been frustrated. The dilemma she faces is the same one that many people who don't have a college degree have.
In the face of the challenges of the labor market, we need to re-examine the criteria for recruitment and pay more attention to the actual abilities and skills of job seekers. The removal of academic qualifications is to provide opportunities to more people, not to limit their development. Only in such an inclusive and open environment can we truly realize the potential of each individual and solve the problem of labor shortage.