Emphasis on skills, not a college degree
Gaining foothold on the middle class takes a new route
ROCKET CENTER, W.VA. — A few years ago, Sean Bridges lived with his mother, Linda, in Wiley Ford, W.VA. Their only income was her monthly Social Security disability check. He applied for work at Walmart and Burger King, but they were not hiring.
Yet while Bridges had no work history, he had certain skills. He had built and sold some stripped-down personal computers, and he had studied information technology at a community college. When Bridges heard IBM was hiring at a nearby operations center in 2013, he applied and demonstrated those skills.
Now Bridges, 25, is a computer security analyst, making $45,000 a year. In a struggling Appalachian economy, that is enough to provide him with his own apartment, a car, spending money — and career ambitions.
“I got one big break,” he said. “That’s what I needed.”
Bridges represents a new but promising category in the U.S. labor market: people working in new-collar or middle-skill jobs. As the United States struggles with how to match good jobs to the two-thirds of adults who do not have a four-year college degree, his experience shows how a worker’s skills can be emphasized over traditional hiring filters like college degrees, work history and personal references. And elevating skills over pedigree creates new pathways to employment and tailored training and a gateway to the middle class.
This skills-based jobs approach matters at a time when there is a push to improve the circumstances of those left behind in the U.S. economy, many of whom voted for President Donald Trump.
“We desperately need to revive a second route to the middle class for people without four-year college degrees, as