Behind the Frontlines: Oregon’s Other Workforce Gap
When Oregon leaders talk about workforce shortages, the focus is usually on frontline workers: teachers, counselors, early childhood educators, and behavioral health clinicians. Those shortages are real and serious.
But there’s a less visible crisis behind them, one that rarely makes headlines.
Across education and human services, Oregon is running short not only of these workers but also of the administrators, coordinators, trainers, and compliance staff who keep schools, agencies, and clinics running. Without people who manage licensure requirements, professional development, enrollment systems, financial aid, and regulatory compliance, institutions grind to a halt. These roles are legally required, operationally essential, and increasingly difficult to fill.
State workforce data bear this out. Oregon projects 2.4 million job openings through 2034, with 60 percent requiring postsecondary education or training. Almost one in four workers is approaching retirement. But while policy attention focuses on frontline hiring, the state also projects nearly 45,000 openings in the coordination, training, compliance, and management roles that support them. Medical and health services managers alone face the fastest growth of any occupation in this category — nearly 30 percent over the next decade. Without these positions filled, the frontline workers everyone is trying to recruit have no infrastructure within which to work.
Yet workforce policy remains narrowly focused on licensure pipelines alone. That approach misses the bigger picture.
Higher education provides a clear example. Oregon’s Adult Attainment Goal calls for 300,000 adults to earn credentials by 2030, a target that depends on community colleges and regional universities serving working adults, most of whom attend part-time and require intensive advising, financial aid navigation, and transfer coordination. These functions are governed by federal mandates—Title IV and Title IX—and must be staffed regardless of budget pressures. Oregon projects more than 1,400 openings in postsecondary education administration alone, positions that require specialized training, not professional licensure.
The same pattern appears in behavioral health. State investments have expanded services, but agencies struggle to build the training, supervision, and compliance infrastructure needed to sustain them. The state projects thousands of openings for training specialists and compliance officers over the coming decade. Program managers and training coordinators are essential to scaling care, yet they sit outside traditional licensure models.
Early childhood tells a similar story. State reports consistently identify gaps in administrative capacity as a barrier to expanding access. Oregon projects more than a thousand openings for childcare and preschool administrators over the next decade. Directors and site coordinators need preparation in program management and oversight, not just classroom practice. Childcare is now widely recognized as a precondition for workforce participation, but the people who administer it remain an afterthought.
Community colleges and regional public universities, such as Portland State, are uniquely positioned to address this gap; they serve working adults, operate at scale, and are embedded in local labor markets. Programs that prepare people for leadership and coordination roles in these fields are not expendable. They are critical. Many of these roles are unionized positions in community colleges, universities, and public agencies.
If Oregon is serious about workforce development, it must invest not only in frontline workers but in the people who keep public institutions running.