Thread: United States Facing a Shortage of Scientists and Engineers

Next time your kids asks you what do should I become when I grow up
Answer:
Engineer or Scientist.
If you don't like being engineer or scientist, you can always become become teacher/Marine later on, but once you pass up chance to earn your graduate degree then it is too late to go back to school.Don't let kids worry about outsourcing or anything.US corporations will never let their core IP leave US shores. This is what it differentiates from other countries.
And hey!. When you know that highest paying jobs are in science and maths area-why not go for it?

Jobs
Since 1980, the number of jobs requiring science and engineering (S & E) expertise has increased at more than four times the rate of growth for all other jobs. Each year, the number of jobs in the US requiring science skills increases by 5%. In comparison, the rest of the labor force grows by 1% annually. So each year, there is more demand for scientists and engineers. Who is going to fill these jobs?

Workforce: Retirement and Replacement of Workers
In the next 20 years, many professionals in S & E will retire. This is because more than half of the S & E degree holders now are in their 40s or older; 30% are age 55 or older. To keep pace with scientists retiring, colleges need to train students in the sciences.
Yet fewer and fewer students are choosing careers in science. The numbers of students between the ages of 18-24 years earning natural sciences and engineering degrees has fallen: in 1975, the US placed 3rd compared to other countries; now the US is in 17th place. In other words, there are not enough new researchers to replace the retiring researchers and there will be a gap in the workforce.
The Role of Foreign-Born Scientists: Filling the Gap
In the past, the US has filled this gap with foreign-born researchers. These researchers come to the US for their training, earning their doctorates (PhDs) from US universities. Many stay in this country to apply their science skills, working in universities or biotechnology companies. This number peaked in the year 2000, when 38% of the employed S & E PhDs were held by foreign-born researchers. Indeed, in 2001, foreign-born students earned more than half of the PhDs in science and engineering in this country.

After September 11, 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks, the US clamped down on foreign-born researchers. It is now more difficult to enter the US to study, and it is more difficult for foreign-born researchers to stay here once they attain a PhD. For example, the number of VISAs (work permits) issued to foreign-born workers dropped 20% in 2001 from the previous year, according to the US State Department. As a result, there are fewer foreign-born students earning PhDs in the US and fewer foreign-born researchers working here now.

To replace the retiring S & E professionals, more college students need to get degrees in the sciences. Over the past 10 years, the number of bachelor degrees in the science has increased, in part because of strong interest in the fields of computer science, psychology and the biological sciences. Engineering degrees, however, have dropped by 8% during this time and math degrees have plummeted by 20%.

Additional Factors: Brain Drain
Brain drain refers to educated workers leaving a country. It is not only that the United States is not training enough scientists, its also that other countries are catching up to the US in terms of scientific excellence. This translates into scientists leaving the US to work elsewhere. Since the 1980s, other countries have invested money and resources in S & E education and jobs at a higher rate than the US. For example, Europe has many excellent research institutions with top-notch students and resources. China is improving its resources for scientists, and offers cheaper labor than the US. Every year there are more jobs abroad: between 1993 and 1997, the US saw a respectable increase of 11% in science jobs but other developed countries increased their science and engineering jobs by a whopping 23%.

The Bottom Line: The US Needs to Train and Retain More S & E Researchers
The US can no longer rely on foreign-born talent to fill our science jobs. Having trained scientists is critical to the "health, security and prosperity" of the US, as the National Science Foundation report concludes. In order to have more US citizens with PhDs employed in S & E jobs, more students need to be prepared to enter graduate school. This means, working backwards along the education pipeline, more undergraduates (college students) need to take science courses, and to be prepared for college-level courses, more high school students need to take science classes.
To be successful in high school courses, more junior high/middle school students need to sign up for science classes. And the move to fill the gap in S & E education and jobs has to begin now. Even if the US starts to support science in an unprecedented way, and middle school students everywhere decide to become scientists, these students would not complete their advanced training until 2018 or 2020!!

Since 1996, the number of PhD degrees awarded in the biomedical sciences has remained stable at around 5,000 per year in the US (In an Era of Scientific Opportunity, Are There Opportunities for Biomedical Scientists? Garrison, H.H., Gerbi, S.A. and Kincade, P.W. FASEB journal, October 8, 2003)

In the 10 years between 1990 and 2000, S & E jobs held by foreign-born researchers (PhD level) increased from 24% to 38% (National Science Board report, "An Emerging and Critical Problem of the Science and Engineering Labor Force," January 2004).

The US Department of Labor predicts a 21% increase in demand for PhD-level position in industry for biology between 2000 and 2010 (Homegrown Scientists, November 25, 2003).

The funny thing is that we're not seeing that down here, at least not in the private sector. My guess is that this large percentage of foreign hires is largely fuelled by government hiring.

I guess if this is true...Bush again has failed and left a lot of American Citizens kids behind... a lot of American kids can not afford continued education...maybe if they had cross a border illegally they would be able to apply for funding...but sadly for them their evil parents are American Citizens

1. There will be no mass retirement of the baby boomer generation. Most of us either don't want to retire or (more likely) can't afford to. We will be much more likely to step up the filing of age discrimination class action lawsuits when they try to force us out.

2. What about all of us who have the 'right' degrees and skillsets, and still get replaced by foreign workers? I heard of a Unix guru who in the downturn of 2000-2004 was reduced to selling pretzels in a mall. I still know people with all the right stuff who are having trouble. I was a science major BTW. I come from a family of engineers and am 4th generation college, and not the first to get a master's either. Yet everyone I know has had trouble lately. The jobs don't pay what they used to and it's almost impossible to get an interview. The companies are very picky - could it be we really have a glut, not a shortage?

Well, I have a solution. We should stop offering law degrees and steer the potential bloodsuckers into the sciences where they could actually contribute to society rather than being the flatworm of the nation's innards. There are a;ready about five or ten times as many lawyers as we really need, which is why they're haivng to buy up all the late-night cable advertizing space as they try to generate a market. As a matter of fact, we have so many damned lawyers that if nature was allowed to deal with the issue they would all mass migrate over a cliff.

The companies are very picky - could it be we really have a glut, not a shortage?

There is not a shortage according to a number of studies, and the wages substantiate this. Wages for engineers have fallen 12% since 2000, probably due to the overhiring of foreign workers. If there was a shorage, wages would be driven up. The authority on H1Bs is Dr. Norman Matloff from UC San Diego - Professor of Computer Science and Mathmatics. He has published extensively on this and has testified before Congress. There was also a study that came out of Duke Univ last summer that came to the same conclusion. We do not have a shortage of American scientists and engineers to support our high tech industries.

Betsy, here is another article that mentions some of the studies.
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ht=#262536

Originally Posted by Kate

The companies are very picky - could it be we really have a glut, not a shortage?

There is not a shortage according to a number of studies, and the wages substantiate this. Wages for engineers have fallen 12% since 2000, probably due to the overhiring of foreign workers. If there was a shorage, wages would be driven up. The authority on H1Bs is Dr. Norman Matloff from UC San Diego - Professor of Computer Science and Mathmatics. He has published extensively on this and has testified before Congress. There was also a study that came out of Duke Univ last summer that came to the same conclusion. We do not have a shortage of American scientists and engineers to support our high tech industries.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I actually have headhunters and tech-specific employment agencies calling me on a regular basis trying to find work for their engineers. I can pick up spare engineers for a given project at the drop of a hat.

Very true, and I also respect Matloff's work. In fact, some people now have begun to suspect that the reason for the decline in the percentage of women and minorities in technical careers is due to their displacement by young males from Asia - H-1bs and L-1s, etc.

I don't know how smart they are but I just heard our goverment is thinking of letting at least 20,000 muslims come in from Iraq, who have been displaced. Does this seem smart to you ? Don't they see what is happening in England as we speak.
Do we really need a bunch of people running around with their faces covered so we cannot ID them.
Don't we have enough problems already with the illegals, you would think they would fix one problem first before they cause more.
I hate to sound racist but these people really worry me!!!England and Europe is in worse shape than we are.

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

I don't know how smart they are but I just heard our goverment is thinking of letting at least 20,000 muslims come in from Iraq, who have been displaced. Does this seem smart to you ? Don't they see what is happening in England as we speak.
Do we really need a bunch of people running around with their faces covered so we cannot ID them.
Don't we have enough problems already with the illegals, you would think they would fix one problem first before they cause more.
I hate to sound racist but these people really worry me!!!England and Europe is in worse shape than we are.

Not all Iraqis are Muslims. There is a fairly large community of Chaldean Christians and even some Zoroastrians. Most of the Muslims are less strident than in other Muslim countries because Saddam ran Iraq as a secularized nation. That's why the Iranians under the Ayatollah went to war with Iraq.