license_cut

In the United States, employers are still having a hard time finding the workers they need. This problem appears to be worst in the South. Recent analysis suggests that there are 2 million open jobs in the South and insufficient workers to fill them.

There are many factors contributing to this challenge. Excessive occupational licensing requirements certainly are not helping.

In recent work that we published via the Archbridge Institute, we provide a state-by-state analysis and ranking of how licensing stacks up across the U.S. We analyzed occupational licensing requirements for 331 occupations across the country — professions ranging from doctors and dentists to mixed martial artists, pawnbrokers and body piercing artists.

Continue reading at The Washington Times.

 

Noah Trudeau, PhD, is a research fellow at the Archbridge Institute and lead author of the institute’s “State Occupational Licensing Index” project. He is also an assistant professor of data analytics at Troy University and a research affiliate with the Knee Regulatory Research Center at West Virginia University. Follow his work @EconTrudeau.

Edward Timmons, Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation at St. Francis University, writes frequently on the history and rise of occupational licensing and it’s relation to economic mobility.

Share: