Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) recently released a report and data tool concerning credential shortages and high-wage, middle-skills occupations. The report concludes that many providers will need to more than double the number of credentials they award to avoid local shortages.

Specifically, CEW examined the production of workers with “middle-skills” credentials (certificates and associates degrees) across U.S. metro areas with over one million residents and compared the current production rates with the projected number of job openings for these workers by 2032. CEW defines high-wage, middle-skills occupations as ones where more than half of early-career, middle-skills workers earn more than $53,000 annually, in 2022 dollars. Some occupations that fall within this definition include power plant operators, nuclear technicians and database administrators. 

Some critical findings that CEW discusses in the report include: 

• The biggest mismatch between credentials and jobs will be in the high-paying, blue-collar sector. Annually, the country will face a shortage of more than 360,000 credentials for these occupations, including most major metros areas.  

• While some metro areas will produce far more middle-skills management credentials than necessary, the majority will face a moderate to severe shortage of locally produced workers with these credentials. 

• In most major metro areas, protective services will experience credential shortages in the high-earning, middle-skills category. 

• Several major metro areas are overproducing middle-skills credentials for high-paying STEM jobs, while some larger STEM hubs like Boston, New York and Washington, DC, will face shortages as will a number of rural areas.   

• The only occupational group with a projected nationwide oversupply of middle-skills credentials is health care. 

For individuals interested in analyzing and comparing trends across metro areas, the data tool allows you to select specific metro areas and occupational groups of interest to examine and draw conclusions from. For instance, the tool indicates that the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area produces significantly more workers with credentials for middle-skills, high-paying management occupations compared to many other metro areas, such as New York-Newark-Jersey City and Boston-Cambridge-Newton.  

Employers, jobseekers, students and other stakeholders interested in examining the projected match among middle-skills credentials and the job market are encouraged to use and share this resource and information.