On the need for occupational licensing deregulation

Edison Lee of the California Policy Center examines Gov. Newsom’s recent Executive Order N-3-22, which loosened hiring/certification requirements for substitute teachers and returning retired teachers. Much-needed amidst California’s scramble for instructors, Newsom’s executive order highlights the overwhelming red tape roadblocks lower-income professionals (e.g., hair salon shampooers) face to get certified. Lee calls for deregulating occupational certification processes, which are far too extensive and expensive in the Golden State.

Unfortunately, the excessive hurdles of California’s occupational licensing bureaucracy don’t just hurt teachers.

According to the Institute for Justice, California is the most regulated state in the nation when it comes to occupational licensing. Seventy-six out of 106 lower-income occupations are licensed in the Golden State. These professions run the gamut from dental assistants, who need ten hours of training, to milk samplers, who have to pass two exams on top of paying a licensing fee.

California’s licensing requirements are often arbitrary. For example, emergency medical technicians are only required to go through 160 hours of training, but hair salon shampooers must undergo six times as many training hours. Why? According to the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, “only a licensed barber, cosmetologist or apprentice can wash a consumer’s hair or prepare a consumer for services.”

States like Nevada and Louisiana issue a cheaper license specific to shampooers, requiring only forty to fifty hours of training. Do California workers really need 1,000 hours of training to learn how to keep the soap out of a customer’s eyes?

Unfortunately for California, industry elites have stood as a bulwark against any meaningful change. A 2018 California Senate bill that would have removed the practice of shampooing from the scope of barbering and cosmetology was stifled in the Assembly after fierce opposition from the Professional Beauty Association and other organizations.

This article originally appeared in the California Policy Center. Read the whole thing here.

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity

Image by Travel Salem on Flickr