By Cliff Montgomery – May 13th, 2013
Is the U.S. suffering from a shortage of ‘home-grown’ scientists and engineers? That was the focus of a federalstudy released last week.
It’s a very important matter. “Scientists and engineers are widely believed to be essential to U.S. technologicalleadership, innovation, manufacturing, and services, and thus vital to U.S. economic strength, nationaldefense, and other societal needs,” declared the study from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
The CRS is a federally-funded ‘think tank’ that creates straightforward, non-partisan reports for members ofCongress. Its study on the state of America’s science and engineering workforce was released on May 6th.
Below, The American Spark quotes the summary from the CRS report:
“The adequacy of the U.S. science and engineering workforce has been an ongoing concern of Congress formore than 60 years. Scientists and engineers are widely believed to be essential to U.S. technologicalleadership, innovation, manufacturing, and services, and thus vital to U.S. economic strength, nationaldefense, and other societal needs. Congress has enacted many programs to support the education anddevelopment of scientists and engineers.
“Congress has also undertaken broad efforts to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)skills to prepare a greater number of students to pursue science and engineering (S&E) degrees. Somepolicymakers have sought to increase the number of foreign scientists and engineers working in the UnitedStates through changes in visa and immigration policies.
“Many policymakers, business leaders, academicians, S&E professional society analysts, economists, andothers hold diverse views with respect to the adequacy of the S&E workforce and related policy issues.
“These issues include the question of the existence of a shortage of scientists and engineers in the UnitedStates, what the nature of such a shortage might be (e.g., too few people with S&E degrees, mismatchedskills and needs), and whether the federal government should undertake policy interventions to address such aputative shortage or to allow market forces to work in this labor market.
“Among the key indicators used by labor economists to assess occupational labor shortages are employmentgrowth, wage growth, and unemployment rates.
“In 2011, there were 5.9 million scientists and engineers employed in the United States, accounting for 4.6% oftotal U.S. employment. Science and engineering employment was concentrated in two S&E occupationalgroups, computer occupations (56%) and engineers (25%), with the rest accounted for by S&E managers(9%), physical scientists (4%), life scientists (4%), and those in mathematical occupations (2%).
“From 2008 to 2011 S&E employment increased by 99,550, rising to 5.9 million, a Compound Annual GrowthRate (CAGR) of 0.6%, while overall U.S. employment contracted at 1.7% CAGR.
“Viewed only in aggregate, the overall increase in S&E employment masks the varied degrees of growth anddecline in the detailed S&E occupations.
“In 2011, the mean wage for all scientists and engineers was $85,700, while the mean wage for all otheroccupations was $43,300. Between 2008 and 2011, the mean wages of each S&E occupational group grewmore slowly (1.5%-2.2% CAGR) than the mean wage for all occupations (2.3% CAGR).
“Compared to the overall workforce, the S&E occupational groups had significantly lower unemployment ratesfor the 2008-2011 period. In general, though, the professional occupations (of which the S&E occupations area part) historically have had lower unemployment rates than the workforce as a whole.
“In 2011, the overall S&E unemployment rate of 3.9% was higher than for other selected professionaloccupations, including lawyers (2.1%), physicians and surgeons (0.6%), dentists (0.7%), and registered nurses(2.0%).
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the number of science and engineering jobs (as defined in this report)will grow by 1.1 million between 2010 and 2020, a growth rate (1.7% CAGR) that is somewhat faster than thatof the overall workforce (1.3%).
“In addition, BLS projects that a further 1.3 million scientists and engineers will be needed to replace thoseprojected to exit S&E occupations. Growth in the S&E occupational groups is projected to range from 1.0%-2.0% CAGR.
“The number of scientists and engineers needed to meet growth and net replacement needs between 2010and 2020 is 2.4 million, including 1.4 million in the computer occupations and 525,900 engineers.”
