California’s Career Passport to connect qualified workers to employment, with or without a four-year degree
What you need to know: California’s Career Passport will launch the pilot demonstration phase on June 17. Career Passport recognizes real-world skills, experience, and learning to boost opportunities for capable workers, especially those without four-year college degrees.
SACRAMENTO –California is continuing its push to open more doors to good-paying jobs by building the California Career Passport – a digital tool designed to better connect workers with employers based on skills, not just degrees.
When implemented, this tool will help more Californians move into in-demand careers and strengthen a workforce that reflects the full range of talent across the state. The Career Passport pilot will involve real users as part of a structured evaluation phase. The four selected vendors will participate in testing that will generate direct user feedback and technical performance data to inform final vendor selection. This approach reflects a commitment to responsible procurement that evaluates solutions based on how they perform in real-world conditions, with real Californians. The pilot demonstration will run from June 17, 2026 to August 24, 2026.
“We’re working to connect qualified Californians to employment opportunities they may have otherwise been overlooked for. California’s Career Passport will be a win-win for our workforce, ensuring that relevant skills, credentials and real-world experience are recognized, and that capable workers are not being filtered out simply because they lack a four-year degree.”
Governor Gavin Newsom
“The Career Passport will create connected pathways that help workers and students gain the skills and opportunities they need to thrive,” said Labor and Workforce Development Agency Secretary Stewart Knox. “California is committed to ensuring every person has access to family sustaining careers by building a workforce system that starts with the realities of workers, no matter where they begin.”
The California Career Passport
As part of Governor Newsom’s Master Plan for Career Education, the California Career Passport will help workers showcase their skills and experiences to potential employers. This tool will be designed to make it easier for people to demonstrate skills and expertise that they have learned outside of the classroom, and help them demonstrate their qualifications and access good jobs.
Advancing skills-based hiring goals, the Career Passport is being designed to help Californians securely share verified information about their education, skills, training, and work experience, supporting efforts to reduce barriers between learning and employment and enabling employers to more easily identify talent based on demonstrated skills and competencies.
The initiative will incorporate cross-sector collaboration across California’s education and workforce systems. State agencies, educational institutions, employers, workforce organizations, and technology providers each have a role in shaping a trusted, user-centered approach to connecting learning and opportunity.
Career Passport will combine traditional academic records, like college transcripts, with verified skills and credentials earned outside the classroom, such as military service, job training, or other skills. The concept, also known as a Learning and Employment Record (LER), provides a mechanism for workers to demonstrate knowledge and skills already learned. Employers will be able to use the Career Passport to see a clear, validated record of a person’s abilities, helping to support hiring practices that value skills rather than just degrees.
“In partnership with the California Community Colleges system, the Career Passport initiative is expected to significantly improve student outcomes by accelerating credit for prior learning and expanding access to living wage career opportunities,” said Sonya Christian, Chancellor of California Community Colleges. “At the same time, the program strengthens employer engagement through defined hiring use cases and targeted outreach strategies that reflect the needs of a diverse and evolving workforce. This approach enables employers to more effectively understand and value competencies gained across both academic and non-traditional pathways, while broadening participation among industries and communities that have historically been underrepresented.
“California Community Colleges help millions of Californians translate learning into opportunity,” continued Christian. “Career Passport builds on that promise by making visible the skills and experiences people gain in the classroom, the workplace, military service, apprenticeships, and throughout life. If we get this right, more Californians will move seamlessly between education and employment, with their talents recognized and their pathways to opportunity widened.”
This work builds on the Governor’s efforts to create pathways to sustainable, well-paying careers across diverse sectors through earn and learn opportunities, such as apprenticeships. Since 2019, over 245,000 Californians have completed a registered apprenticeship, helping put the state on track to meet the Governor’s ambitious goal of serving 500,000 apprentices by 2029. The state has already met the Governor’s goal in earn and learn opportunities, with over 674,735 opportunities completed statewide – one in 30 Californians in the workforce – since the Governor took office. By integrating apprenticeships and innovative tools like Career Passport, California is equipping workers with the credentials and skills they need to succeed while addressing workforce gaps and bolstering the economy.