Bearing the modest title “Recognizing the Value of Experience in State Government Hiring,” Executive Order No. 278 makes a number of concessions to economic reality. First, the order “recognizes that state employees bring value to their jobs from their experience and skills, not only from academic degrees.” Second, it acknowledges that many North Carolinians make use of technical education and apprenticeships rather than four-year colleges and are none the worse for it.
The upshot of these admissions? The director of the Office of State Human Resources must now take action “to emphasize how directly-related experience substitutes for formal education in [state] job recruitments.” Mandatory four-year degrees and the attendant credential inflation? Out.
NC joins several other states in dropping 4-year degree requirements. For the past 40-50 years, these requirements were used to filter out applicants from the large and growing labor pool.
Today, the young cohort is shrinking, and these filters are no longer necessary.
U.S. Fertility rate since 1960
