SALT LAKE CITY — Major changes to the licensing structure for workers in the beauty industry could be coming to Utah, according to the Office of Professional Licensing, which on Thursday presented a plan to recommend to the state Legislature during the next legislative session. .
The Office of Licensing, created by the state Legislature in 2022, examines all occupations in the state once every 10 years, director Jeff Shumway said.
The overhaul of the beauty industry that took place last year generated significant interest from current license holders. In August, students from a cosmetology school across the valley staged a protest during a meeting of the Utah Legislature’s Business and Labor Interim Committee at the Utah State Capitol.
The impact of these changes can be far-reaching. The industry, one of the most common in the state, has more than 60,000 active licenses, according to the Division of Professional Licensing. By comparison, there are approximately 56,000 active nurse licensees and 33,000 contract nurse licenses in the state.
A new presentation was held Thursday night outlining a more final version of the license change recommendations to about 400 online attendees, the review office said.
Public input at the meeting was limited to written comments, which KSL.com did not have access to at the time of publication.
“The reason we have a license is to make sure that we control some form of serious harm to the public,” Shumway said. “Licensing isn’t really about the quality of the haircuts that are provided. It’s about the safety of the haircuts that are provided.”
The director said there were three main focuses found in the department’s investigation.
Public security
First, the review found that time spent training does not necessarily correlate with the risk of the procedure to the public.
“We found that the training across the state was not always consistent and was not always focused on public safety,” said Jordan Gigi, who worked on the review. “Students across the state are overtrained for low-risk services and undertrained for high-risk services.”
We recommend requiring a minimum number of hands-on iterations for each service.
consumer transparency
The second issue they identified concerns licensing structure and transparency. Mr Shumway said there was significant overlap in many of the licenses on offer, causing confusion for consumers.
“If I’m a consumer and I want to get laser hair removal, for example, there are four types of licenses that fall within the scope of laser hair removal practice,” Shumway said. “But for me as a consumer, it’s going to be very unclear what that training actually was for you and what the license means in terms of training.”
He said the lack of transparency in training requirements “really defeats the purpose of licensing, which is to tell consumers who they can trust to be safe in the marketplace.”
The department proposed reconfiguring the licensing hierarchy so that each specialty has its own separate “microlicense.” These small blocks can be used to build traditional comprehensive licenses such as Master Aesthetics and Cosmetology.
Barrier to entry
The coach said, “There is a gap between training and actual practice content.”
“If you’re trying to get your license now, you might have to spend time and money training for skills you don’t actually need or want,” Shumway said. Under the current structure, students may be required to pay for training in a specialty they don’t want just to get a license, he explained, adding that this could be done through “state coercion or law.” “It is an abuse of official power.”
Interviews conducted by KSL.com with cosmetology school students who protested in August revealed that students seeking licenses to prove they are industry experts and the primary need for consumer safety. It has become clear that opinions are divided among students who want to obtain a license as Ayumu.
Shumway said the state review board recommended that Congress take the position that licensing “provides requirements to make sure everyone meets that minimum standard.” It is said that there is.
“We want to make sure that students and licensees don’t have to spend more time or money than necessary to reach a level of consumer safety,” he said, similar to the food industry. Becoming a chef requires food safety certification, but it has nothing to do with professional skill level.
The firm believes the new microlicensing structure will save money and allow practitioners to dive into one specialty and add to that scope over time.
Other considerations
Kirsi Jarvis, a policy analyst with the Office of Professional Licensing and Review, said the agency will also limit the number of apprentices a supervisor can have to two across the board and make class time requirements the same as work hours. He said that he recommends that. Transfer more easily.
Many students who participated in the August demonstrations feared that the sweeping changes would affect their federal financial aid. Jarvis said the two main traditional licenses, cosmetology and master esthetician, will continue to be eligible for Pell Grants, but individual microlicenses will not.
Jarvis said that from a portability standpoint, the master esthetics license should be transferable because it “goes beyond the scope of many other esthetics licenses in other states,” but transferring a cosmetology license out of state does not. He said two more microlicenses would be required.
None of the recommendations will be implemented until 2026, Jarvis said. Starting in the 2027 license renewal cycle, current license holders will be able to certify microlicenses for which they have already received training.
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