Enough With Bachelor's Degrees
Job openings seem to be everywhere. Walk down the block past a row of businesses and odds are you'll see at least one "We're Hiring" sign. Many employers seem desperate, increasing wages, offering sign-on bonuses, emergency child care and other incentives to get employees in their doors. However, many of these businesses may be tripping themselves up by including an underlying requirement that screens out most applicants well before they ever get to a job interview. That requirement is a bachelor's degree.
On today's show, we speak with former economic advisor to President Obama and CEO of non-profit Opportunity@Work, Byron Auguste. Byron says the requirement for a four year college degree has become something of an automatic add-on for employers...which is a big problem. Sixty percent of working Americans don't have bachelor's degrees. That means that employers are automatically excluding the majority of potential workers, without ever considering their other qualifications. Byron says not only are employers possibly missing out on good candidates, they're inadvertently contributing to broader forms of discrimination, both in and out of the office.
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