Activating STAR Talent Across Regions

STAR Mobility Compass

The STAR Mobility Compass shows how regional leaders can expand job pathways, improve wages, and ensure access to emerging work so more workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes can move into better-paying jobs.

The U.S. labor market is changing quickly, raising urgent questions about talent pipelines, economic mobility, and how regions can connect workers to good-paying jobs. For the more than 70 million workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes, or STARs, these shifts reveal both persistent barriers and significant opportunity.

STARs build skills through community college, partial college, certifications, military service, apprenticeships, and learning on the job rather than through a bachelor’s degree. They make up more than half of the workforce and reflect the full diversity of the country across race, ethnicity, gender, and geography.

This report applies the STAR Mobility Compass to regional labor markets and shows how local leaders can take practical, place-based action to improve mobility for STARs while strengthening their own talent ecosystems.

Labor Markets Are Local

Workers experience the labor market locally, and workforce solutions work best when they reflect regional realities.

The vast majority of US workers live and work in the same county or work in a neighboring county. That makes region-based strategies essential. Employers, public agencies, educators, nonprofits, and funders all shape whether workers can access skills-based pathways into better jobs.

The STAR Mobility Compass:

Three Ways to Move STARs to Higher Wages

The STAR Mobility Compass is a future-oriented framework for improving mobility at scale. It shows how three interventions can collectively move 10 million STARs into better-paying jobs by 2030.

Increase access

Broaden skills-based job pathways so STARs can be hired into good-paying roles where they already have relevant skills.

Increase wages

Raise pay in essential low-wage occupations where STARs are overrepresented and where compensation often fails to reflect workers’ skills.

Ensure access to new-to-world jobs

Design emerging jobs with skills-first practices from the start so STARs can access better-paying opportunities created by economic and technological change.

What This Report Shows

This report spotlights how three distinct regions each demonstrate one of the STAR Mobility Compass’s three interventions:

Greater Tulsa: Broaden Skills-Based Pathways

Tulsa could move 45,900 STARs into higher-paying jobs by 2030 by rewiring hiring practices to center skills.

Key takeaway: A focused effort on 30 jobs of regional importance could unlock opportunity for 10,000 STARs.

Tulsa is at an inflection point. As the region grows sectors such as cyber, virtual health, energy tech, and advanced air mobility, employers can build more inclusive pathways into good-paying work by hiring STARs into high-demand roles and investing in learning along the way.

Colorado: Compensate STARs for Valuable Skills

Colorado could move 278,800 STARs into higher-paying jobs by 2030, with the biggest gains coming from improving wages in essential low-wage roles.

Key takeaway: Raising wages across five essential occupations could improve earnings for roughly 132,900 STARs.

Many essential low-wage jobs require valuable and transferable skills, but do not compensate workers accordingly. Colorado shows how wage policy and public investment can stabilize essential work and the broader regional labor market by improving worker retention and livelihoods.

Greater Detroit: Build Equitable Access to Emerging Work

Detroit could move 149,100 STARs into higher-paying jobs by 2030 by prioritizing career pathways and economic livelihood in job design.

Key takeaway: Skills-first pathways into emerging jobs could create opportunity for at least 24,300 STARs.

Detroit’s industrial transformation does not have to mean worker displacement. By recognizing the transferable skills STARs already bring from traditional automotive and manufacturing roles, the region can connect workers to emerging jobs in advanced manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and technology.

Why Regional Action Matters Now

This is a critical moment for action. The norms set today will shape whether future job growth expands access to opportunity or recreates the paper ceiling in new forms.

Over the past five years, the movement to Tear the Paper Ceiling has broadened opportunities for STARs and expanded employers’ access to talent. The next step is more ambitious: building skills-first regional labor markets that improve match quality, reduce turnover, and help workers continue building skills over time.

Everyone has a role in building a thriving regional labor market

Lead cross-sector coalitions, define shared goals, coordinate action, and track progress on regional skills-first strategies.

Use policy, procurement, funding, and public-sector hiring practices to strengthen pathways, stabilize wages, and reward skills-first employers.

Adopt skills-first practices at all stages of the talent lifecycle, from employee recruitment to professional development, and collaborate with partners across the regional talent pipeline.

Reduce barriers to access, align programs to employer demand, and provide learning, reskilling, and upskilling opportunities for workers at all career stages.

Fund the infrastructure, research, policy alignment, and narrative change needed to scale regional skills-first ecosystems.

Download the Report

Regional leaders do not need to start from scratch. They can act now to build a more inclusive, resilient, and upwardly mobile economy by strengthening skills-based pathways for all workers.

Discover More Research

Rise with the STARs

Our report, Rise with the STARs: Building a Strong Labor Market for STARs, Communities, and Employers, shows the impact of degree discrimination on employers and STARs and identifies a better path forward for everyone.

Barriers and Breakthroughs

The STAR Barriers and Breakthroughs Framework identifies six key contributors to STAR economic mobility and the many interventions and investments that can support a STAR's career progression.