The third annual Northern Virginia Workforce Index revealed a region mirroring a national struggle: a strong economy with a persistent talent shortage stemming from an over-reliance on a four-year degree as an indicator of workplace success.
Companies are hiring, but report workforce availability remains a challenge. The real issue isn’t a shortage of candidates. Our market has many candidates who would be ideal for persistently vacant positions, but because they lack a four-year degree, businesses look right past them.
While residents of Northern Virginia tend to have higher levels of educational attainment than the country on average, our more competitive labor market means regional employers can’t escape the need to be more creative when seeking talent. To be ready for 2050, Northern Virginia businesses must change how and where they look for workers.
In Northern Virginia 2024, businesses are sending mixed messages that block their ability to fill critical workforce needs. While 60% say a candidate’s formal education is not important to hiring decisions, most of these same employers identify bachelor’s degrees as very important or essential even to entry-level positions. Northern Virginia job postings are more likely (32%) to require a bachelor’s degree for entry than are national postings (22%). To compound this challenge, 45% of Northern Virginia employers rarely or never accept equivalent experience in lieu of degrees.
A move to skills-based hiring, even in part, would immediately widen the talent pathway and begin to close the workforce gap for our region. When employers remove what Opportunity@Work calls “the paper ceiling” of a four-year college degree, the pool of talent expands dramatically. More than 70 million adults in the U.S. are what Opportunity@Work deems “STARS”: individuals skilled through alternative routes who do not hold bachelor’s degrees. In Virginia, 3.5 million adults have some college but no degree – or no college whatsoever; that’s almost 60% of all Virginians 25 and older.
Breaks in the talent pipeline don’t impact only “big name” employers; the workforce shortage affects the entire ecosystem. Almost half of Virginians are employed in small businesses, which constitute more than 99% of employers in the commonwealth. The lack of a qualified and available workforce impacts quality of life: Neighborhood shops and services, new and longtime entrepreneurs, and the small- and medium-sized enterprises that form an essential and critical supply chain for larger employers – including the contractors that support federal and commonwealth operations – are all challenged by the talent gap.
Across the country, there’s a national trend toward relaxing education and degree requirements to emphasize skills-based hiring instead. The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School call it “the emerging degree reset,” and note it has the potential to greatly expand the labor market and create true economic opportunity for those currently on the outside looking in.
NOVA is the largest public higher-education institution in Virginia and the largest provider of talent in the region. Our students have outstanding GPAs and a drive to succeed; they have completed internships, clinicals and fieldwork; they have triumphed in the essential skill of time management; they are leaders on campus and in the community; many are military veterans, making them eligible for security clearances; and state data show that 81 percent of Virginia’s community-college students will stay in the commonwealth after they graduate. Yet, the results of the 2023 Northern Virginia Workforce Index suggest despite their ongoing challenges in sourcing and retaining talent, employers are looking past these individuals time and time again.
The talent we need to sustain and grow the region is here. The Northern Virginia 2050 charge to employers is clear: Think differently about your current, future and potential workforce. Think outside the degree. Our future depends on it.
