Barriers to Accessing Good Jobs in STEM Sectors

In 2023, Jobs for the Future (JFF) introduced a new North Star for the transformation and advancement of education and workforce systems: “By 2033, 75 million people facing systemic barriers to advancement will work in quality jobs.” This collective North Star responds to research stating that only 44% of workers in this country have quality jobs. This challenge is exacerbated by ongoing shifts in the job market. Research projects that by 2031, 85% of good jobs will require postsecondary education or training, but only 54% of U.S. residents hold a postsecondary credential as of 2024.^[1] [2]JFF is increasing access to quality jobs by promoting a dual transformation: supporting our partners to improve job quality for workers right now while creating more seamless connections between education and career to develop a skilled-talent pipeline for existing quality jobs. JFF’s North Star serves as a call to action across the learn and work ecosystem and invites partners in the field to join in the pursuit of this goal.

One of the ways JFF is building a skilled-talent pipeline of young people prepared for quality jobs is through the Pathways to Prosperity Coalition. This coalition has existed for over a decade, collaborating with education-to-career pathways leaders across the country, including educators in K-12 and higher education, workforce development boards, employers, and local government officials. In this work, technology, health care, and manufacturing are a few of the most commonly recommended fields for students. Data shows these are in-demand sectors with occupations that pay living wages, making them excellent industries to ensure that students and jobseekers have access to jobs that lead to economic advancement.  

When applying JFF’s Quality Jobs Framework to technology, health care, and manufacturing, the technology sector aligned best with the framework, while manufacturing had the most opportunities for improvement. All these industries have unique and notable strengths: 

Industry: Tech

• High Wages
• Work Conditions

Industry: Health Care

• Fast Growing
• Accessible living wage jobs with sub-bachelor credentials

Industry: Manufacturing

• Apprenticeship and on-the-job training opportunities
• Renewed federal investment in advanced manufacturing

Though we found several strengths in these sectors when applying the framework, we also found many challenges that impede job quality, and we offer recommendations for pathways leaders to better assess the quality of jobs in their communities and close gaps. The individual reports reference sector-specific challenges, and in this blog we tackle two cross-cutting challenges: educational requirements and occupational segregation.   

Educational Requirements: 

Educational attainment significantly impacts the quality and compensation of jobs that workers can access across all three sectors. High-paying positions generally require a bachelor’s degree or higher, underscoring the importance of education for more lucrative career opportunities. An additional barrier to entry and opportunity for individuals without traditional degrees is the relative lack of employers adopting skills-based hiring practices.  

• Tech: Most high-paying positions require a bachelor’s degree, and roles across the wage spectrum often require prior work experience. While there are some early adopters of skills-based hiring practices, this approach is still not widespread across the sector. One of the few tech jobs that is attainable to workers without a bachelor’s degree is computer-user support specialist.³

• Health care: There is a clear distinction between high- and low-wage roles based on educational requirements. To advance in health care without acquiring additional degrees is difficult, if not impossible, because many roles require specific licensure. Low-wage roles that are difficult to advance from in health care include positions like home health aides, medical assistants, and pharmacy technicians.⁴  However, health care does have some jobs that generally pay a living wage and require less than a bachelor’s degree including respiratory therapist, radiology technician, and dental hygienist.⁵ 

• Manufacturing: This sector features a significant variance of educational requirements across roles, with high-quality advanced manufacturing jobs often requiring degrees beyond a high school diploma or specialized credentials. Many roles also require considerable on-the-job training. While the highest-wage roles, including engineers and supervisors, generally require a bachelor’s degree, low-wage roles such as testers, sorters, machine tool cutting setters, operators, and electronics assemblers, have lower educational requirements but fewer opportunities for advancement. Two jobs that generally pay a living wage and require less than a bachelor’s degree include welders and machinists.⁶

Pathways leaders can address the challenge of educational barriers to quality jobs by: 

• Developing business-education partnerships that support career advancement through increased education. Among the biggest barriers to further education are time and money. If employers offer higher education assistance and partner with local colleges and universities, then they can effectively address talent recruitment and development challenges.
• Supporting education and training programs tailored to the specific needs of each sector. Investing in and promoting programs that enhance skills, make direct connections to employers, support career advancement, and align with the framework’s principles is essential.
• Advocating for policy reform that enhances job quality. This includes supporting pay transparency, securing funding for education-to-career pathways and work-based learning opportunities, as well as promoting equitable and inclusive hiring practices. 

Occupational Segregation: 

One of the most pressing issues across all three sectors is the underrepresentation of Black and Latine workers in high-wage positions. Despite the growing emphasis on diversity and inclusion, there remains a significant disparity in the representation of Black and Latine workers and women in leadership and higher-paying roles, and a corresponding concentration of women, Black, and Latine workers in lower-wage positions with more limited opportunities for advancement.  

• Tech: The tech sector has notable disparities in gender and racial representation across all roles, composed of 28% female workers, 8% Black workers, and 8% Latine workers. Looking further into the data, women and people of color are more underrepresented in the highest-paying roles. For example, computer and information systems manager is one of the highest-paid roles and is made up of 30% female workers and 7% Black workers and 8% Latine workers.⁷  

• Health care: The health care sector is predominantly female, but women and people of color are more highly concentrated in lower-paid support roles, such as home health aides.⁸ Home health aides are projected to be the fastest growing occupation across all sectors by 2032, underscoring the importance of improving job quality for this role.⁹ Radiologists are the highest-paid occupation in this sector, and they are 75.5% male and 77% white.¹⁰ 

• Manufacturing: There is a divide between high-quality jobs in advanced manufacturing and lower-paid roles in traditional manufacturing, with an underrepresentation of Black and Latine workers in higher-paying positions, such as engineers and managers.¹¹ For example, one of the highest-paid roles, industrial production manager, is made up of 5.1% Black workers and 11.5% Latine workers, whereas one of the lowest-paying positions, packer and packager, is made up of 18.2% Black workers and 44.2% Latine workers.¹² In a 2023 Compensation Best Practices survey by Payscale, Human resources respondents from the manufacturing industry also expressed less likeliness to conduct pay equity analysis than other industries.¹³   

Pathways leaders can work to reduce occupational segregation by: 

• Designing pathways with job quality in mind. This involves creating and promoting clear, accessible education-to-career pathways, as early in the educational experience as possible. These pathways should offer exposure, skill development, and career progression within the industry. 

• Collecting data and disaggregating it by race and gender. Employers should examine workforce trends (who is hired and who exits the organization), while education partners should track who enters and completes programs of study that lead to quality jobs.  

• Facilitating cross-sector collaboration. Employers should develop effective strategies, informed by input from education partners, for recruiting, supporting, and retaining a more diverse workforce, specifically within higher-quality occupations.  

For more detailed information and possible actions to address occupational segregation, go to End Occupational Segregation. 

The Role of Employers 

While all pathways leaders are crucial in preparing students and jobseekers for quality jobs, employers have an outsized ability to improve job quality. When collaborating with employers, consider encouraging these strategies: 

• Increase the compensation for low-wage roles to meet the living wage standard specific to your region. 

• Prioritize recruiting and retaining a more diverse workforce, particularly for high-wage roles.  

• Revisit what degrees are really required for a given occupation. Some jobs will ultimately require a bachelor’s degree or beyond, but bachelor’s degrees should not be used as a proxy for assumed skills. 

• Conduct a salary equity analysis that addresses wage disparities by race and gender. 

Collaborative Action for Comprehensive Job Quality Improvement  

There is a clear need to increase wages and create more accessible and streamlined paths for advancement across the lowest-wage occupations within these sectors in order to improve their overall quality. However, it will take a joint effort by stakeholders across the education and workforce development ecosystem to keep a holistic view of job quality at the forefront when designing and developing programs, collecting and analyzing data, and creating and implementing policies within their locus of control. By doing so, we can cultivate a system that helps students and job seekers access education and fulfilling careers with opportunities for growth, while mitigating inequities and promoting economic advancement.