New collar jobs may be the way forward for HR pros and their organizations. New collar workers tend to combine technical fluency, manual capability and adaptability—and these roles are becoming the backbone of the ever-changing economy, according to a report from LinkedIn. In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 60% of new jobs will come from occupations that typically don’t require a degree by 2030.

As AI accelerates change across every industry, these roles are surfacing in construction, maintenance and repair, transportation, healthcare, technology and nearly every field that touches them. The question for HR leaders is whether their organization is ready to embrace, promote and nurture them.

Who’s Filling New Collar Jobs?

If blue collar employees are traditionally trade workers and white collar workers are those with four-year degrees, new collar workers sit in between—defined by aptitude rather than credentials. They’re in good company: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Jack Dorsey and Larry Ellison were all new collar workers before the term existed. Because these roles don’t require degrees but do require adaptability, you can often train tenured or new employees for the position you need to fill—especially useful since the roles themselves will keep evolving.

Continuing ed courses, online classes, certification programs and boot camps are popular and relatively inexpensive ways to get up to speed on technology. New collar employees only need relevant skills to get a foot in the door—and, as Gannon-Jones notes, they often bring aptitude, productivity, humility and a strong desire to learn the business from the inside out.

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Finding New Collar Workers

You don’t have to look far. Current employees already understand the business and hold institutional knowledge that can’t be replaced—it’s just a matter of upskilling or reskilling. There’s also a generation of young adults, soured by rising college costs and student debt, who’ve pursued trade school, certifications and the school of hard knocks. Three moves help you find and hire them: strip degree requirements from job descriptions except where legally required (law, finance, medicine); be explicit about job-relevant skills and list only the make-or-break ones; and assess actual ability during interviews rather than relying on where a candidate worked or studied.

Help New Collar Workers Succeed

New collar roles will keep evolving—probably faster than traditional jobs have in past decades—so training and reskilling will always be essential. Invest in your people with four moves: offer ongoing on-the-job learning that extends beyond technical training into communication, leadership and decision-making; set up mentorships (mentors don’t need degrees either); broaden workers’ view by exposing them to operations meetings, C-level shadowing and time in other departments; and redefine what success looks like in performance reviews to reflect how developing employees grow into their roles.