Today, the House Education and Workforce Committee unanimously advanced Rep. Burgess Owens (UT-04) Modernizing Access to Talents, Credentials, and Hiring (MATCH) Act of 2026, H.R. 8183, during full committee markup, moving the legislation one step closer to a vote on the House floor.
The MATCH Act brings the workforce into the 21st century by creating a modern, interoperable way to verify skills and connect talent to opportunity. Currently, industries have millions of job openings, but they are struggling to find skilled workers to fill them. That is not due to a lack of skilled workers, but because of an outdated system. The MATCH Act modernizes our workforce system by improving how a person’s skills, credentials, and work experience are recognized and verified, and how they are then connected with opportunities that align with their abilities. The legislation is supported by a range of stakeholders and leaders in the workforce development space, including EBSCOed, and Pearson.
“I am incredibly grateful that the Committee has advanced the MATCH Act today with bipartisan and unanimous support. Too many Americans have valuable skills they cannot easily articulate, while too many employers struggle to find the talent they need. This bill helps close that gap by supporting modern workforce data systems, talent marketplaces, portable skills records, and voluntary, job-related skills assessments. This bill ensures every American has a fair opportunity to demonstrate his or her skills and succeed in the workforce.”
Representative Burgess Owens
“A Learning and Employment Record turns what you can do into something you own. The MATCH Act writes that principle into law: skills that are verified, controlled by the individual, and portable across every employer and every state line. EBSCOed is proud to support the MATCH Act by putting an LER in the hand of every American, free and for life. This is how the country keeps its oldest promise with its newest tools, that opportunity belongs to anyone who can do the work, and now they can prove it.”
Greg DiDonato, Vice President, EBSCOed
Background
The MATCH Act would specifically:
- Authorize a five-year pilot program for talent marketplaces—digital platforms that help match workers to jobs and training based on verified skills, credentials, and experience.
- Support the use of portable learning and employment records that allow workers to carry their verified skills and credentials across jobs, programs, and state lines.
- Strengthen credential registries that clearly define what degrees, certificates, and training programs represent in terms of skills and competencies.
- Require workforce information to be accessible through user-friendly, searchable public websites to improve transparency for workers and employers.
- Promote interoperability and open standards to ensure systems can work across state lines and institutions, which would support worker mobility and reduce duplication.
