Design Problems Can Be Fixed

The good news is that because people design the labor market, they can redesign it. When employers use signals that are better reflections of skills — dropping degree requirements, rewriting job descriptions around skills, adopting assessments that make worker capabilities visible — jobs reopen to STARs and pathways widen. We know this works because we have seen it happen:

In 2020, the data shifted. The two-decade decline in opportunity for STARs began to reverse, and STARs started regaining share in roles they had lost — yielding 783,000 jobs.