A recent report from Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School has found that employers’ hiring behaviour is lagging behind the creation of policy changes around skills-based hiring. The report authors explained that the skills-based hiring movement has gained momentum and interest, but they wanted to investigate whether this was reflected employers’ behaviour. The period from 2014 to 2023 reportedly saw a nearly fourfold increase in the share of workers in roles with no degree requirements, but almost all of this change was driven by one-third of the companies studied. 45% of companies made changes in name only, while 18% made short-term gains before backsliding and hiring an even smaller share of workers without degrees. “To hire for skills, firms will need to implement robust and intentional changes in their hiring practices — and change is hard,” reads the report.
