Beauty product retailer The Body Shop is dropping educational requirements and background checks for job applicants. United Parcel Service Inc. is making some job offers in as little as 10 minutes. CVS Health Inc. no longer requires college graduates to submit their grades.

In a labor market where job openings outnumber applicants, companies are brainstorming how to get more candidates in the door and to the floor. The hiring overhaul signals a potentially broad rethink of job qualifications, a change that could help millions of people enter jobs previously out of reach, according to economists and workforce experts…

New data from labor-market analytics firm EMSI Burning Glass and the Conference Board, a private research group, suggest that 1.4 million jobs will open to people without college degrees in the next five years if employers continue to lower educational requirements at the current rate. In January 2019, 42% of employment ads for insurance sales agents called for a bachelor’s degree, the data show. In September 2021, 26% did.

Loosening requirements opens opportunities to some of the nearly two-thirds of American adults who don’t have bachelor’s degrees but may have the skills or aptitude to perform many well-paying jobs.