[sciborg2]

The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

Everyone knows that the United States has long suffered from widespread shortages in its science and engineering workforce, and that if continued these shortages will cause it to fall behind its major economic competitors. Everyone knows that these workforce shortages are due mainly to the myriad weaknesses of American K-12 education in science and mathematics, which international comparisons of student performance rank as average at best.

Such claims are now well established as conventional wisdom. There is almost no debate in the mainstream. They echo from corporate CEO to corporate CEO, from lobbyist to lobbyist, from editorial writer to editorial writer. But what if what everyone knows is wrong? What if this conventional wisdom is just the same claims ricocheting in an echo chamber?

The truth is that there is little credible evidence of the claimed widespread shortages in the U.S. science and engineering workforce. How can the conventional wisdom be so different from the empirical evidence? There are of course many complexities involved that cannot be addressed here. The key points, though, are these...

[locke]

Been saying this ever since sf spent tons lobbying for h1b visa reforms the past few years, obviously they don't want to train Americans when they can import labor from india, pay them less, know they'll never ask for benefits and can be shipped out of country by canceling their visas if they give you any lip.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

[Wilshire]

I'll say from first hand experience that myself, and most of those I know who graduated with engineering degrees, did not have an easy time finding a job. The shortage is in employers paying for work, not in workers.

Why hire a new grad when you can hire some schmuck who lost his job in the recession, with 5+ years of experience, at the same pay grade? Engineering companies can pay interns <$12/hour and give them no benefits, or hire experience professionals on the cheap. Or, even better, ship labor over seas to India, or do what locke said.


The US will hit another rough patch here in a few years. Most companies are now missing a hugely important section of their workforce. They stopped hiring for the last 10 or so years, and now you've got a bunch of companies that have plenty of new grads, say <25 years old, and older folks 55+ who where entrenched enough to not lose their jobs. There is such a huge age gap that in about 5-10 more years there will be no senior managment left, as they'll be retired, and no well trained mid level people to replace them... But hey, at least they got cheap labor for 20 years.