This report relies on several national data sets to assess how the turbulence in the labor market sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic affected employment prospects for noncollege workers and job seekers. The report finds that:

• Compared with the period preceding the pandemic, the labor market was tighter for workers without a bachelor’s degree in June 2021. For workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher, the reverse was true.
• Educational requirements that employers listed in jobs ads were slightly lower after the onset of the pandemic, even after controlling for broad occupation and sector classifications.
• Comparing five COVID-era quarters with the five quarters preceding the pandemic, there were an additional 2.3 million online postings for jobs that pay above the national annual median wage and do not require a bachelor’s degree. The author attributes this primarily to the greater volume of job postings for these types of occupations, but lower educational requirements also played a role.