# Burning Glass Institute ## Basic Info **Name:** Burning Glass Institute (BGI) **What is it:** Nonprofit research organization focused on labor market analytics, skills-based hiring, and workforce mobility. Produces data-driven research on jobs, skills, and credentials. Spun off from Burning Glass Technologies, a for-profit labor market data company. **Who is involved:** Founded and led by [Matt Sigelman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattsigelman/), former CEO of Burning Glass Technologies (now Lightcast). Partners include Harvard Business School's Project on Managing the Future of Work, Schultz Family Foundation (Howard Schultz/Starbucks), Walmart, Charles Koch Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Gatsby Foundation (UK). **Location:** Philadelphia, PA **Link:** [burningglassinstitute.org](https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/) ## What they do BGI mines job postings, career histories and salary data to produce research on labor market trends. Their main outputs include: - **[American Opportunity Index](https://americanopportunityindex.org/)** — ranks Fortune 250 companies on worker mobility and advancement, especially for non-degree holders - **[Skills-First Workforce Initiative](https://www.skills-first.org/)** — convened by Walmart, developing standardized skills taxonomies for common jobs ## Core position BGI advocates for **skills-based hiring** — the idea that employers should drop college degree requirements and hire based on demonstrated skills instead. They frame this as expanding opportunity for the ~62% of Americans without four-year degrees, whom they call "STARs" ([[Paper Ceiling|Skilled Through Alternative Routes]]). But also BGI's own research reveals a gap between rhetoric and reality: Out of every 100 jobs that dropped degree requirements, fewer than 4 additional hires were made of non-degree holders. In other words: companies announce skills-based hiring for PR, but hiring managers still prefer degrees. The "degree reset" is largely performative. ## Funding and affiliations BGI sits at an interesting ideological intersection: - **Corporate sponsors:** Walmart, Blackstone, Microsoft, Accenture, Bank of America - **Conservative philanthropy:** [[Charles Koch Foundation]], [[American Enterprise Institute (AEI)]] - **Centrist/establishment:** [[Schultz Family Foundation]], Harvard Business School, [[Gatsby Foundation (UK)]] This coalition suggests the skills-based hiring agenda appeals across political lines — to conservatives (reducing credentialism, market-based solutions) and to corporations (expanding labor supply without raising wages, reducing degree premium). ## Entries **[[2026-01-02]]:** Discovered Burning Glass through [Soumitra Shukla](https://soumitrashukla.github.io/)'s research. His paper — "[Making the Elite: Top Jobs, Disparities, and Solutions](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/files/ifdp1331r1.pdf)" — shows that caste disparities in India don't emerge in objective tests (aptitude, group debates), but rather in personal interviews that assess "cultural fit".