IEEE Spectrum: "The STEM Crisis Is a Myth"

[SomeGuyInEagan]

From the article:

"And yet, alongside such dire projections, you’ll also find reports suggesting just the opposite—that there are more STEM workers than suitable jobs. One study found, for example, that wages for U.S. workers in computer and math fields have largely stagnated since 2000. Even as the Great Recession slowly recedes, STEM workers at every stage of the career pipeline, from freshly minted grads to mid- and late-career Ph.D.s, still struggle to find employment as many companies, including Boeing, IBM, and Symantec, continue to lay off thousands of STEM workers."

and:

"Clearly, powerful forces must be at work to perpetuate the cycle. One is obvious: the bottom line. Companies would rather not pay STEM professionals high salaries with lavish benefits, offer them training on the job, or guarantee them decades of stable employment. So having an oversupply of workers, whether domestically educated or imported, is to their benefit. It gives employers a larger pool from which they can pick the “best and the brightest,” and it helps keep wages in check. No less an authority than Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said as much when in 2007 he advocated boosting the number of skilled immigrants entering the United States so as to “suppress” the wages of their U.S. counterparts, which he considered too high."

Interesting read from - of all places - an engineering journal.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

[LongTomH]

1. K&R

I hear this from a lot of sources these days!

[Blecht]

2. It's fascinating to watch college administrators chase the STEM ball around

All the administrators I've talked to about STEM pretend they're helping students, but all they are really trying to do is to further their own careers. They end up hurting vulnerable students by steering them into fields with nonexistent jobs, and everyone already working in the science and math fields ends up worse off, too.

Studying math and science in college is becoming more and more like buying a lottery ticket -- you gotta be in it to win it, but there are very few winners.

[cascadiance]

3. Which is precisely why the Immigration bill needs to remove the H-1B pieces in it!

H-1B does not belong in this bill. It is NOT about immigration. These people that are "guest workers" are NOT immigrants under that program. Replace H-1B with helping those same people obtain green cards and prioritize those that want to become citizens here, and help that process move quicker than the 10+ years that it takes many to get citizenship now when the PTB intentionally try to direct people to union-busting, salary lowering guest worker jobs instead of becoming immigrants!

[phantom power]

4. It's like Krugman says -- if it's "structural", show us all the STEM employees getting huge salaries

If we really have more jobs than people to fill them, the people who *can* fill them should be sitting pretty. It should be a job-seeker's market.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't see that happening.

[hootinholler]

5. That hasn't happened since the mid 80's n/t

[CFLDem]

6. Just more evidence

that a college education is over emphasized. Probably so lazy/cheap assed employers don't have to train employees.

Don't get me wrong, a college education is a great way to become well-rounded and maximize one's potential.

But ideally speaking, a high school education or two year degree should be society's standard for most people to get a good job. Which should be accomplished by raising the standards for those levels of education, not reducing the standards for the Bachelor's like we're doing now.

But no, let's encourage kids to get up to their eyeballs in debt for a increasingly worthless piece of paper.

Yeah that's the best interest of the nation

[dawg]

7. There is a *real* shortage of qualified, degreed, American STEM workers ...

who are willing to work 60 hours a week for $29,000 a year.