Slashdot Mirror
New Study Suggests No Shortage of American STEM Graduates
An anonymous reader writes "A study released Wednesday by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute reinforces what a number of researchers have come to believe: that the STEM worker shortage is a myth. The EPI study found that the United States has 'more than a sufficient supply of workers available to work in STEM occupations.' Basic dynamics of supply and demand would dictate that if there were a domestic labor shortage, wages should have risen. Instead, researchers found, they've been flat, with many Americans holding STEM degrees unable to enter the field and a sharply higher share of foreign workers taking jobs in the information technology industry. (IT jobs make up 59 percent of the STEM workforce, according to the study.)"
Obviously the shortage is dreamed up by corporations attempting to justify importing cheap foreign labor.
This actual study itself has at least one very good point that may not be obvious to people: our leadership's drive to promote the idea of a STEM shortage is primarily to justify guestworkers and allow them to add provisions like OPT-STEM extensions. Don't get me wrong, there is a sort of shadow brain drain war going on here that for a long time the West had easily been winning. UK, Germany, USA, etc had been sucking up the talent from India, China, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, you name it we took the brightest from it. And it was really really easy. And now Western leaders are kind of getting uncomfortable because, well, it's not really working in our favor anymore. I care that our politicians are being deceiving about this concept but I don't care about the "taking our jobs." In fact, I'm one of those meritocratic boogeymen that thinks our borders should be open with nothing more than a background check into your criminal record before you're granted entrance to the United States. Sure, some other stuff would need to change but that's an entirely different argument I'm not going to get into.
The main point of this study, however, is what the Post picked up on and is being reiterated: there is no shortage of STEM workers here in the US. And while that's likely true, the study (though comprehensive) doesn't really seem to ever step up to the plate and look at STEM versus non-STEM in the cases of employability and what those industries do for our GDP. Our leaders like Obama are operating on the assumption that a surplus in STEM workers is better than a perfectly equalized workforce with zero unemployment. They're not going to say that but my guess is that they're getting uneasy that China is mandating how many STEM workers it will produce and limiting the number of liberal arts degrees. The West is now uneasy that they might start losing the STEM war and they're trying to figure out how to scare their populations into letting them selectively brain drain other countries. A fake "massive shortage of STEM workers" is pretty much their only card so far.
My work here is dung.
There's a huge difference in the job market for pure scientists (the "S" in STEM), and IT folks. The job market for someone with a PhD in, say Astronomy is terrible. Lumping these folks together with the legions of code hackers is ridiculous.
of course it is a myth. It is just a ploy by large businesses to boost the H1B Visa program to increase the supply in order to push wages down.
I'll take, "Corporations prefer international young and desperate engineers they can lock into five or ten years of indentured servitude for much less money and minimal benefits for $500, Alex."
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
There's no shortage of STEM graduates.
There's most _certainly_ a shortage of _cheap_ STEM graduates.
I consult as a programmer. I work for large corporations and mid-cap companies. When I stated a LONG time ago it was pretty common to see college hires and interns in programming departments. Interns are extremely rare, and I haven't seen a college hire in a programming team in 6 years. Companies would rather hire "experienced" off-shore programmers. So the only pressure there is on wages is off-shore.
Since the quality of off-shore work is a bit suspect I make a lot of money (almost certainly too much) as the lead/architect that's keeping things together. If companies want to stop paying people like me too much money they should be hiring young (cheap) workers to put downward pressure on wages. That doesn't happen because it's seen as easier to just go off-shore.
That's not to say all off-shore programmers are bad. There are several eastern European/ec-Russian block states that produce high quality code. They happen to cost about 2X the wages of India Off-shore and carry some IP Protection baggage.
The single-minded pursuit of the best and the brightest candidates is a fool's errand. There are only a few of "the best" by definition, and they can work wherever they want. If you are not getting enough good applicants, it's because you are failing to attract them in the competitive marketplace. That may not (just) be because of salary, but also factors like where you're located and whether the work is interesting at all.
H1-B visas broaden the candidate pool but they won't change a company's competitive standing relative to others. "The best" are still going to go to the most attractive employers, and if that's not you, then I see two alternatives: either make your jobs more attractive somehow, or admit that what you really want are not "the best," but "the good enough."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Basic dynamics of supply and demand would dictate that if there were a domestic labor shortage, wages should have risen. Instead, researchers found, they've been flat, with many Americans holding STEM degrees unable to enter the field and a sharply higher share of foreign workers taking jobs in the information technology industry. (IT jobs make up 59 percent of the STEM workforce, according to the study.)"
Wages will only rise if the labor supply decreases. The labor supply won't decrease if you import foreign workers.
In other words, your car will stop if you run out of gas. The car is still moving, so you must not be out of gas. Please kindly ignore the fact that you're rolling down a mountain.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
... are STEM graduates who are willing to work for the pittance most companies intend to pay. The shortage is of salaries, not candidates.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
There's no shortage of STEM graduates. There's most _certainly_ a shortage of _cheap_ STEM graduates.
If something is in short supply, prices tend to go up. If the market price for STEM graduates is relatively high compared with other professions, that is strong evidence that there is indeed a tight market for STEM graduates. If there was a surplus of STEM graduates, their wages would tend to fall. Market forces are pretty good at solving this problem. Stipulating for argument's sake your claim that STEM graduates are not cheap, then by definition they must be in relatively short supply.
Allow an H1B visa holder to change jobs freely within the 6-year timeframe of their visa.
An employer would *have* to pay them a competitive salary to keep them from defecting to the competition. In that case, the employer would only willingly go through the hassle of justifying an H1B hire (we'd keep that requirement firmly in place, BTW) if there was a true need, not simply a desire to get an indentured serf on the cheap.
This would be good for everyone who's honest and upfront about their motives. It would only hurt sleazy employers who are falsely claiming a shortage of labor to underhandedly keep wages low.
Of course, the cynical part of me says it'll never happen.
And, for full disclosure: I started out as an H1B myself, and would have LOVED for the system to work like this...
Yah. We need to stop the flow of illegal STEM graduates from Mexico.
There is indeed a profound shortage of STEM workers, in much the same sense that there is a profound shortage of 2014 Corvettes on sale for $10.
The past twenty years has been dominated by the MBA and the JD. The same people who demand outrageous salaries on the premise that they are indispensible, seemingly have a difficuly time understanding supply-and-demand when it applies to other people.
If you are capable of getting a degree in a STEM field, then you are likely more intelligent and rational than the average person. And an intelligent, rational person is less likely to commit to years of graduate work given the low salaries and job security that seem to be the norm. Why work and sweat so hard, when your CEO is just going to send your job to India so he can get his quarterly bonus.
When STEM grad students can expect $100k job offers out of the gate, and MBAâ(TM)s have to live with their parents to make ends meet, I bet our âoeshortageâ of STEM workers vanishes rather quickly.
(Have both a MBA and most of a Ph.D. in physics. Gave up the Ph.D. after I met brilliant people in my field who were in their 10th year as a postdoc and needing food stamps to make ends meet.)
This report does effectively see what is going on. Its the continuing effort to destroy high wage jobs in the US because corporate interests do not want to pay high wages.
Manufacturing jobs have faced this over the past few decades. Middle management has faced this. Now the skilled technical worker is the target for wage lowering.
However, our Captains of Industry have lost the wisdom that Henry Ford had about making sure their employees can afford the things they make.
There is really a neo-feudalism being formulated right now with the CEOs and corporate officers and boards taking a huge chunk of the company money, and with the money changers on the other side skimming off the top as well. They fail to see that enriching and advancing the middle class is the best way to actually make more money in the future. Their current method is going to empty the tank for the engine of the economy and set us on a continuous downward spiral.
The key thing to fix this problem will be to have businesses move away from "Increase Shareholder Value" and back to "give the customer what they want."
This is what is so dangerous about the Hedge fund managers' desires to increase Apple dividend payments. Apple has a clear focus on giving the customer good products. Turning them into a shareholder value type of company will only lead to disaster.
Parent is a Troll.
Certainly there is a conspiracy, but there is nothing mysterious about it.
It is clearly advantageous for companies to hire people that will be happy with flat earnings and no job advancement opportunities, as well as fewer costs associated with the eventual lay-off.
People like to say H1Bs make the same wages as other IT folks, and this may well be true, but they do help keep wages flat, and their overall cost is less.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I think this is best summed up by the following short post at Marginal Revolution (an excellent economics blog):
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/04/is-there-a-shortage-of-stem-workers-in-the-united-states.html
It comes down to the definition of shortage. The standard economics definition of a shortage is when supply does not meet demand. The paper shows that the supply of STEM workers does seem to meet demand for them.
However, it could well be that we'd be better off if there were more STEM workers -- driven by higher demand for them. That is not addressed by this paper, and this definition (that more resources allocated to STEM would be better) is a fine definition for a shortage.
That's the underlying issue.
Why are people always talking about STEM shortages, but not the shortages in doctors or pharmacists? Corporations always lobby to increase the H1B quota, but you will never see anyone lobbying that we need to bring in more doctors or pharmacists to lower the cost of medical care. The reason I believe is quite simple: The American Medical Association and National Pharmacists Association are very strong unions. They even lobby against increasing seats in US medical colleges and even building more colleges. However, whenever someone talks about trying to form a union for IT developers or Engineers, we call it socialism, nazism, communism. Seriously, we have been saying for the past 10 years after NAFTA and other free trade agreements that only the "low skill" manual laborers will suffer. Well, now they have destroyed the market for manual labor and the corporations are coming for engineers, IT, and scientists wages. The only way we can fight this is if we stand together. This is not about Xenophobia. I myself am an immigrant from India. We need to ensure fair pay and benefits for domestic workers.
To curtail the H1B visa program. Our jobs have been STOLEN from us by our legislators and big corporate interests. It's time we get them back.
I want my baristas to know string theory or how to rationalize a database, not some horseshit about Renaissance art! STEM! STEM! STEM! VENTI
I don't know if there are too many STEM workers, but there is definitely a huge shortage of understanding of science and math in the general population...
A conspiracy is (by definition) an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime in the future.
Your definition disagrees with mine:
(OED 4th Edition)
Even if we confine the discussion to legal defintions, they vary from place to place. Here's OED's second defintion, which is tagged as relating to law:
So even in this definition, the act need only be reprehensible and not strictly illegal to qualify.
What they can get are H1-Bs, who are like indentured servants. H1-Bs can't change jobs easily. They're cheap. They can be fired on a whim. Insuance can be optional. They're slightly better than purely offshored work because you can communicate with them more easily and have some hope of getting what you asked for, usually.
Employers will *always* choose the slavert/serf option if it's available. This is the kind of unregulated capitalism favored by libertarian nitwits.
Regulations happened for a reason. Work it out.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
A company will always try to hire the best and the brightest at the lowest cost. And if that means foreign workers then so be it.We are all part of global economy
So we're now all part of the global economy, huh? Then we should definitely allow STEM guest workers, just as soon as we start doing it for doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc., eliminate sugar, ethanol, orange juice and other agricultural tariffs, and get rid of things like region coding and nabbing the elderly for buying their prescriptions in that third world hellhole of unsafe pharmaceuticals called "Canada".
if you want to compete, you better raise your game
So you're prepared to take a pay cut to be more competitive with your Indian counterparts? How noble of you.
There was a time when the US workers were a leader in the engineering and sciences.
There was also a time when there was a good economic incentive to become educated and work in STEM fields.
Here is the quick summary of the historical trends by major:
From 1970 until 2010, US population grew by about a third. However, the number of bachelor's degrees granted doubled. This is reasonable - we have a more knowledge driven economy.
There were about 52 thousand engineering and computer degrees per year around 1970. By 2010, this number is about 120 thousand - so that more then doubled. Much of this is related to computer science/information degrees (not surprising). Engineering increased but failed to double.
Math/statistics degrees decreased from about 25 thousand per year to 15 thousand per year. That might be concerning.
Physical science degrees (mostly chemistry, some geology and physics) were unchanged: about 21 thousand per year up to about 23 thousand per year. That might not sound great.
Education degrees fell from 176 thousand per year to 101 thousand per year. Ya, that is probably not good.
So what boomed? Business degrees. From 115 thousand per year in 1970 up to 358 thousand per year in 2010, which is about 22% of all degrees granted. And if you look at salary and unemployment, they do not do too bad - about on par with life science majors; better than most majors.
After business degrees, social science degrees are the next largest category, but the raw number granted per year (from 1970 to 2010) did not grow very much.
Health care related degrees, performing arts and psychology also more then doubled.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Lots of people seem to be missing the point here. It's easy to be cynical and point out that companies must be doing it so they can get away with paying less for desperate H1B workers. These people do not work for tech companies trying to hire good people. There is no shortage of candidates with STEM backgrounds and education, which is all this study seems to say. I have done literally hundreds of interviews at a large tech company for software/systems engineers, and meet an endless supply of STEM candidates all the time. The problem is that the vast majority of them do not meet our hiring bar. If you need to hire 100 software engineers, but can only 50 that meet the company's high hiring standards, that kind of sounds like a shortage to me. Sure, we can hire 50 mediocre software engineers to get to 100, but why would I want to do that? I'd much rather see better STEM education and H1B flexibility (in that order) so that I can fill those other 50 positions with good people.