A trio of new interstate compacts that enable greater mobility for some professionals are essential steps in giving employers the needed flexibility to fill positions in a persistently challenging labor market. 

The Washington state Legislature deserves kudos for passing—by wide margins—such compacts. Gov. Jay Inslee should sign each of those three compacts into law—with one small adjustment we'll explain later—and expand the labor pool for the cluster of professions. 

The new interstate licensure agreements apply to social workers, physicians assistants, and pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers who are licensed in other states that have similar arrangements in place. Passage of those bills comes a year after the state joined an interstate compact for nurses, enabling health care providers to recruit and hire nurses from many other states.

While compacts have the potential to help the labor market as a whole, one impetus for removing licensure barriers is to provide military spouses with a greater opportunity to find employment when transferred to a base in Washington. Senate Bill 5180, which involves the teacher compact, specifically mentions granting licenses for active military personnel and eligible military spouses who have equivalent licenses from other states. 

This is a big win for military communities in the state. For Spokane, it stands to bolster the community's important relationship with Fairchild Air Force Base. The base on the West Plains perennially is the largest employer in Spokane County, with just over 7,400 full-time equivalent employees in the county as of last Nov. 1, according to the Journal's most recent largest employers list. 

Jake Mayson, director of public policy at Greater Spokane Incorporated, says the potential effect on military families is "gigantic" and is the main reason GSI has advocated for the agreements. 

Mayson says national statistics show that 1 in 5 military spouses is a licensed teacher. He says, "We want to make sure this is as easy of a transition for them as possible." 

He also notes that the U.S. Department of Defense uses time-to-employment rate for military spouses as a metric when evaluating bases, and lowering that rate would help to keep Fairchild as a competitive option if base closures are considered in the future. 

The wrinkle in the teacher compact that GSI and others hope to be addressed involves an 11th-hour addition to the bill that makes diversity, equity, and inclusion training a condition of employment for teachers coming from other states. 

DEI training is an essential component of continuing-education training for teachers—and others, for that matter—and completing such training within the first few years of employment makes sense. But licensed teachers coming to Washington from other states shouldn't be held to a higher standard than those who are newly hired within the state. We hope Inslee uses his line-item veto to address that barrier to employment in what otherwise is a positive measure. 

Big picture, however, state leaders have taken positive steps toward helping employers address worker shortages and toward potentially smoothing transitions when military families are transferred to Washington bases.