Close to 20 years ago, companies began requiring a four-year college degree when seeking to fill middle-skill positions that historically had not demanded any specific level of higher education. This phenomenon, referred to as "degree inflation", barred many from excelling in the workforce and, in many cases, from being hired at all. But as businesses have come to recognize that even applicants with diplomas require significant on-the-job training, they’ve replaced diploma-driven hiring with skills-based criteria. This shift has helped employers by boosting the number and quality of applicants applying for specific roles, and helped employees and job applicants by creating more opportunities for hiring and promoting from a more diverse pool of candidates. What are the social and economic impacts of this hiring shift? What skills are employees likely to need for jobs of the future? Will workforce transformation truly expand economic opportunity?