Comment: There’s a better way to transfer job-skills licenses
Published 1:30 am Saturday, January 17, 2026
By Liam Sigaud / For The Herald
Washington state faces a labor crisis that threatens its economic future.
Businesses are desperate for talent, but workers are scarce. From rural hospitals east of the Cascades struggling to find physicians and nurses, to construction projects in Puget Sound facing delays for lack of skilled tradespeople, to schools throughout the state confronting chronic teacher shortages, the labor market is foundering.
It doesn’t have to be this way. This year, lawmakers in Olympia have an opportunity to enact bold, meaningful policies that will bring more workers to communities throughout the state, but some reforms are more effective than others.
A key challenge in drawing more workers to Washington is the portability of occupational licenses. A recent report from the Knee Regulatory Research Center found that Washington licenses nearly 200 different occupations, ranging from cosmetologists and animal control officers to body piercing artists and real estate evaluators. As a result, Washington has the 11th highest percentage of workers with occupational licenses in the country.
While licensing might seem like a reasonable measure to ensure workers are properly trained, policymakers often overlook the negative effects of burdensome licensing requirements. Studies consistently find that licensing results in fewer jobs, less choice and service innovation and higher prices.
And it gets even worse when licensed workers try to move from one state to another. When a licensed, experienced professional moves to Washington from, say, Oregon, Idaho or Texas, the law treats them as if they’ve forgotten everything they know. In many cases, they are forced to navigate a labyrinth of paperwork, fees and redundant training just to do a job they have been doing safely for years. These barriers don’t just create headaches for workers who choose to migrate; they also deprive Washington of workers who decide it’s too much trouble and don’t come at all.
One approach to streamline this process is to join interstate compacts. Compacts are agreements among states to honor specific occupational licenses. The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, for example, allows physicians to obtain licenses in multiple states through an expedited pathway, making it easier to practice across state lines.
On the surface, this sounds like a perfect solution. It is not.
First, many compacts retain barriers to licensure in other states, including hefty fees and additional training requirements. Second, compacts are narrow and profession-specific; separate compacts have been developed for dentists, nurses, social workers, teachers and other jobs. Still, the vast majority of occupations licensed in Washington have no compact associated with them. If Washington enters a compact for dietitians, it does nothing for the electrician, the manicurist, or the security guard who still faces an onerous state-specific licensure process. Third, compacts are notoriously slow to enact. Each compact requires years of negotiation, legislative approval in every member state, and the creation of a governing commission.
Washington’s economy needs help now, not in a decade.
A better way to improve labor flexibility is to take a fundamentally different approach: universal licensing recognition (ULR). Instead of asking other states for permission or negotiating complex agreements in a piecemeal fashion, ULR recognizes that an experienced dental hygienist in Idaho does not become unsafe the moment they cross the border into Spokane.
Under ULR, Washington would simply say: “If you have a valid license in good standing from another state, and you have been practicing safely, you are welcome to work here.”
The ULR model has already been passed in Idaho, Nevada, and more than 20 other states. As ULR continues to spread, states with restrictive licensing rules will increasingly fall behind in the competition for talent. Research already shows that ULR states experience an influx of skilled workers.
Washington has a proud reputation as a hub for innovation. Yet its licensing laws are stuck in the past, discouraging newcomers and undermining business growth.
Legislators have a clear choice this session. They can continue the disjointed, slow-motion approach of compacts, or they can take decisive action to tear down bureaucratic licensing barriers and send a clear message to the rest of the country: Washington values skill, respects experience, and is open for business.
Liam Sigaud is a research analyst at the Knee Regulatory Research Center at West Virginia University.
