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What STEM Shortage? The sector isn’t seeing wage growth and has more graduates than jobs.
National Review ^ | 05/20/2014 | Steven Camarota

Posted on 05/20/2014 6:40:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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To: proxy_user
What percentage of these degree holders actually have skills employers are looking for?

They probably have little to no skills.

My son, who is now in engineering school at Virginia Tech, was going to enter the STEM program that was just starting up at the time he was to enter high school. The teachers had a two week summer program to start the young children off and give them a flavor of what was to come so I dropped him off at the local high school and picked him up mid afternoon.

He was very upset as he said they spent most of the day surfing the Internet on the subject of rockets and then they made a couple of rolled up paper rockets.

An entire summer day wasted on nothing so I found out the list of teachers who would be doing the teaching for STEM and found none of them had the qualifications to teach any hard science or mathematics. On top of that many of the children enrolled had lousy GPAs and were not the children we thought would be attending a program developed for the express purpose of advancing children into science and engineering careers.

That first day was his last for the STEM program and he took all the real hard classes by himself.

The STEM program is nothing more than another waste of our hard earned money and a feel good for both low-level students and low-level teachers.

21 posted on 05/20/2014 7:22:19 AM PDT by OldMissileer
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To: skeeter

All these institutes are lying?

First, just because this guy says that all those institutes agree with him doesn't mean they actually do.

Secondly, they way they are looking at the data may be skewed. This guy says he was looking at people with bachelor's degrees in STEM. A lot of STEM focuses on high school kids and getting them into associate degree programs, votech, community college, etc., instead of a bachelor's degree.

Also, those institutes could have a biases against STEM. Maybe more government funding for STEM means less government money for research grants.

I'm not necessarily saying STEM is super awesome, rah rah rah. I'm just saying that this guy is selling a product, his research, and you should look at what he says just as carefully as you would the claims of one of those As Seen On TV infomercials.
22 posted on 05/20/2014 7:28:27 AM PDT by caligatrux (...some animals are more equal than others.)
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To: justlurking
"He is absolutely right: Competent, experienced engineers and architects are always in short supply"

No, you are both wrong.

Competant, experienced employees of ANY kind are in short supply. Apparently, a supply/demand pricing mechanism is no longer an acceptable approach (unless you are a Lawyer, CEO, Justin Timberlake, or a lobbiest).

As one US Defense Secretary once said, "You need to learn how to win the war with the Army you have, not the Army you want".

Maybe the problem is we need an H1B program for senior corporate managers and their K-Street lackeys.
23 posted on 05/20/2014 7:30:01 AM PDT by indthkr
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To: qam1
H1B visas area tool for companies to recruit foreign students, most of whom are graduating from US universities and are losing their student visas, to stay and work in the United States as high tech indentured servants.

The companies sponsor them in the US and they work for a number of years at 50-75% of the wages of a comparable US citizen.

Once the visa holder has a green card and is on track for citizenship, they either get a big raise or move on to a better paying job.

This ploy was pioneered by the Silicon Valley tech companies to recruit foreign Stanford, Berkley and other grads s cut rates and it has fueled the tech industry ever since.

These H1B visa holders are some of the most talented and productive members of our country and a huge fraction of the Silicone Valley elite stated their careers as H!B indentured slaves, doing the technical work American college students were too lazy to study for.

The reason America has a tech shortage is that American college students have historically been too lazy to study for.

Science and Engineering students often spend their Friday and Saturday evenings hitting the books, not the bars, while Gender Studies students are out at the bars studying gender with free government supplied contraceptives .

24 posted on 05/20/2014 7:33:53 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: SeekAndFind

“The country has well more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. Also consistent with other research, we find only modest levels of wage growth for such workers for more than a decade. Both employment and wage data indicate that such workers are not in short supply.”

How will the “Sure, I’m against illegal immigration, but am all for those who want to come here legally” FReepers going to spin this one? That it’s O.K., since Big Business will be able to import more low wage employees, thereby displacing American workers who then can get on the 99-week unemployment gravy train and everything will be hunky-dory?


25 posted on 05/20/2014 7:34:26 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
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To: proxy_user

Agreed. “STEM” is a mighty broad designation and many undergraduate degrees don’t count for much, while many employers are looking for experienced hires.


26 posted on 05/20/2014 7:34:52 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: indthkr

Actually, top flight people of ANY type are in short supply.

That’s what makes them “top flight”, every profession has a few elite practicioners.

Sometimes a few are sufficient for demand, sometimes there’s a need for more.

And there’s a solution for that: we call it the Free Market. . .


27 posted on 05/20/2014 7:35:27 AM PDT by Salgak (http://catalogoftehburningstoopid.blogspot.com 100% all-natural snark !)
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To: rdcbn

I hope you’re right. My son is starting college in August in astronautical engineering.


28 posted on 05/20/2014 7:35:41 AM PDT by cyclotic (America's premier outdoor adventure association for boys-traillifeusa.com)
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To: rdcbn

H1Bs are primarily used for foreign students graduating from US universities? That’s news to me!


29 posted on 05/20/2014 7:35:46 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: indthkr

If competent, experienced employees of ANY kind are in short supply, then it stands to reason that competent, experienced engineers and architects are in short supply.

I believe you must have meant to suggest that both previous posters are correct—not wrong.


30 posted on 05/20/2014 7:38:15 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Yo-Yo

RE: Hmm, I wonder what an “H1B Visa” is?

The US H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields such as in architecture, engineering, technology, mathematics, science, medicine, etc..


31 posted on 05/20/2014 7:39:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: Salgak
"And there’s a solution for that: we call it the Free Market. . .

YES! We have a winner!
32 posted on 05/20/2014 7:45:44 AM PDT by indthkr
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To: 9YearLurker
H1Bs are primarily used for foreign students graduating from US universities? That’s news to me!


That's the way it works.

Foreign students make up a huge fraction of our countries STEM enrollment in many Universities because American public schools do a poor job of preparing high school grads for STEM studies and because Americans just don't want work hard enough to make through, much less excel, the STEM career programs

Eliminate H1B visas and the brain drain from our universities would be very problematic for the country.

I personally watched our POS immigration system deport a brilliant PhD Aeronautical engineer with a specialty in missiles for a paperwork error at the same time the Social Services jerks were recruiting illiterate illegal aliens to have government funded delivery of their anchor babies in American hospitals.

He went to China instead where he was welcomed with open arms , which was not a good thing for the United States

33 posted on 05/20/2014 7:50:28 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: indthkr
Maybe the problem is we need an H1B program for senior corporate managers and their K-Street lackeys.

I think you've nailed it.

34 posted on 05/20/2014 7:51:08 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: rdcbn

Not exactly true.
Cheap technology people are in short supply.
Its all about “cheaper and shorter design cycles” right now.


35 posted on 05/20/2014 7:52:11 AM PDT by Zathras
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To: rdcbn
because Americans just don't want work hard enough to make through, much less excel, the STEM career programs

Ridiculous. This says more about where you're coming from than it does the point you're trying to make.

36 posted on 05/20/2014 7:53:26 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: FlipWilson

I have a son-in-law who is an expert in computer website design. He’s already quit two or three well-paying jobs because he didn’t like the way the company he worked for was going. He almost immediately got hired with better pay by other companies after quitting those jobs.


37 posted on 05/20/2014 7:56:58 AM PDT by driftless2 (:-))
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To: Zathras

Not exactly true.
Cheap technology people are in short supply.
Its all about “cheaper and shorter design cycles” right now.


It takes talented, top flight people to do things faster and cheaper and such people are hard to find.

If anyone knows where such people are in surplus supply please let me know because we are looking


38 posted on 05/20/2014 7:57:47 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: qam1
"last name Patel"

As does it seem many of the people who run hotels and motels when the wife and I go out west on vacation.

39 posted on 05/20/2014 7:59:21 AM PDT by driftless2 (:-))
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To: rdcbn
Years ago a doctor told me about a horrible shortage of nurses... He said nurses were being brought in from the Philippines to assist...

I was puzzled - told him I knew of nurses who were having a hard time finding work.

Here's where it got real - he said, ‘American nurses want too much money’.... So the only ‘shortage’ was of desperate third world types willing to work for low wages.

40 posted on 05/20/2014 7:59:29 AM PDT by GOPJ (If dems will "death panel" our vets they'll damn sure death panel the rest of us...)
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