Washington not on pace to fill growing job gap • Washington State Standard

Washington will have more than 1.5 million job openings in the next eight years but it’s not currently training enough people to fill them. 

A new report from the Washington Roundtable Partnership on Learning, a nonprofit run by Washington business leaders, found that the state needs about 600,000 more workers with postsecondary credentials than it is on pace to have. At the same time, the number of workers with high school diplomas, or less, will outpace the jobs available to them, leaving those fields more competitive.

“Washington’s education and training systems are not producing talent with the right skills at the right levels to keep pace,” said Marc Casale, founder and CEO of Kinetic West, which led the research for the report.

Washington’s job growth is expected to be 12.8% through 2032, compared to 2.8% nationally. Of the 1.5 million job openings through 2032, about 640,000 are new jobs and 910,000 are from retirements. 

That means Washington not only needs to scale up training for new types of jobs but also for current ones that will lose employees, Casale said.

Three quarters of those jobs will require some postsecondary credentials, and 45% will require at least a bachelor’s degree. 

Washington will also have about 639,000 uncredentialed workers, but not enough jobs for them to fill, leaving about a quarter million workers with few employment options, according to the report. 

Counting on migration from other states is not enough to meet the job gaps, Casale said, so the state must do more to train its workforce. 

To meet the growing gap, the report includes five recommendations that the state should prioritize. 

The first and most important is increasing the number of people receiving bachelor’s degrees in Washington, said Brian Jeffries, policy director at the roundtable. 

To do so, the state should find ways to fill open capacity at its colleges and universities, especially at regional branches and online campuses. This could be done through more guaranteed admissions programs and financial aid resources. Washington should also look at expanding applied bachelor’s programs and direct transfer opportunities at community and technical colleges. 

Other recommendations include prioritizing enrollment and completion of apprenticeships, training in high-demand jobs and supporting more employer-led training programs. Jeffries said he wants the Legislature to continue investing in workforce development programs that encourage employers to take part in training their employees. 

Training and education opportunities should focus on occupations with the highest need. Over the next eight years, those are likely to be in advanced computing, construction and skilled trades, clean technology, health care, business and management, and education. 

Another recommendation is to provide more opportunities for K-12 students to earn postsecondary credits and to prepare for life after high school. 

Part of that will come from an overhaul in the state’s graduation requirements, which the State Board of Education is preparing to do over the next few years, Jeffries said. He said the business leaders should be part of that process to make sure high school graduation requirements align with what postsecondary schools require. 

Central Washington University President Jim Wohlpart said he thinks of the workforce challenge as an opportunity for the state to rethink its curriculum and higher education system to create clear pathways through higher education and into the workforce.

“We need to embed college in the high school so that the transition from high school into post secondary education is as seamless as middle school to high school,” Wohlpart said.