As COVID moves further into the rearview mirror, Colorado’s economy still has 117,635 jobs to fill as of this month, following a pandemic when many workers chose to leave work to care for family or avoid outside contact.

That was on the mind of Gov. Jared Polis when he signed an executive order Thursday requiring state agencies to put more emphasis on skills and experience as opposed to four-year college degrees, to lower barriers in recruiting new employees.

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Over 15,000 of those posts are in computer and other math-related fields, according to ConnectingColorado.com, the statewide job search website. Polis and his staff chose a newly opened building at Google’s Boulder Campus at 30th and Pearl Street to highlight that need. The governor noted that Google Boulder has been an early adopter of skills-based hiring practices.

Google’s Senior Director Bhavna Chhabra announced the company’s plans to invest some $9.5 billion in offices and data centers around the U.S., with $30 million for Colorado facilities – including remodeling 125,000 square feet in its Reve office space purchased earlier this year near the Boulder campus. Reve is planned for reopening in 2024 as a fully electric, carbon-free workplace.

To underline the value of skills vs. formal education, Polis brought along working mom Elena Barrera, who had to quit University of Colorado’s School of Engineering in spring 2020 to care for her daughter, after schools sent students home during the pandemic’s outbreak. Barrera nonetheless parlayed a two-year associate degree from Front Range Community College into an executive job as managing director at Lafayette’s Ashcraft Technologies, relying on previous experience to fill in for a four-year education.

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“You have to be able to express what you do,” Barrera said following the signing.

She said she got her first job when she was 8 years old and took advantage of community college to gather work experience as a customer service coordinator. Barrera advises high school students and others entering the workforce to gain real-world experiences on the job as well as education.

“You’ve got to double dip,” she added. “You want education to back you up, but just as valuable are your working experiences.”

The new executive order directs managers overseeing the state’s 31,000 employees to consider job applicants’ skills and experiences as substitutes for educational degrees and certifications. Under the order, the state’s Department of Personnel & Administration would create a template to map specific skills that would be equivalent to college degrees, and to monitor job postings to ensure compliance.

“Nearly one in five state positions are vacant, resulting in unsustainable workloads for too many state employees,” said Hilary Glasgow, executive director of Colorado WINS, representing state employees, in concert with the signing.

In November, the governor signed a partnership agreement with Colorado WINS raising the minimum wage for Colorado’s direct care workers to $15 an hour.

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Text of the executive order is available at colorado.gov/governor/news.