
The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent - prostoalex
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/frenzy-about-high-tech-talent/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream&utm_content=NYR+STEM+frenzy+Boko+Haram+Midsummer+Nights+Dream+CID_869a7e4df211b9f2091810c10f23c98f&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=STEM%20Frenzy
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chrisbennet
_" A 2014 study by the National Science Board found that of 19.5 million
holders of degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, only
5.4 million were working in those fields, and a good question is what they do
instead. The Center for Economic Policy and Research, tracing graduates from
2010 through 2014, discovered that 28 percent of engineers and 38 percent of
computer sciencetists were either unemployed or holding jobs that did not need
their training.2"_

~~~
JesperRavn
The second set of figures are from [0] and the figure of 28% is the smallest
out of all majors. The figure for "Computer Scientists" is actually the "Math
and Computers" section. From these figures, (non-software) engineering
actually looks like the best choice from an employment perspective, but is
roughly equal with education and health.

[0] [http://www.cepr.net/documents/black-coll-
grads-2014-05.pdf](http://www.cepr.net/documents/black-coll-grads-2014-05.pdf)

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fiatmoney
In these discussions, it's helpful to when you see "talent" to substitute
"cheap talent".

~~~
JesperRavn
That's always true though, e.g. in the Irish potato famine there was no lack
of food, just food that people could afford.

If STEM talent is expensive, that means there is not enough of it and we
should encourage more. It will be bad for the people who would have gone into
tech anyway, but good for the people who would have got lower paying jobs
otherwise.

We should also be encouraging people to go into other high paying areas like
medicine, law or finance. But I think STEM (and medicine) have the highest
positive externalities so that is another reason to encourage STEM jobs.

~~~
greenyoda
_" If STEM talent is expensive, that means there is not enough of it and we
should encourage more."_

Who gets to determine whether it's expensive or not? The large tech companies
can certainly afford to pay more for tech talent. Apple alone is sitting on a
couple hundred billion dollars in cash. Google, Facebook and Microsoft also
make billions in profits each year. It's not like these companies are in any
danger of becoming unprofitable. The fact that we're creating more STEM grads
each year than we have jobs for seems to suggest that we already have too many
of them, not too few.

And nobody is complaining about how expensive executive-level talent is. Why
don't the big tech companies complain that there are so few people qualified
to be CEOs that they need to pay them tens of millions of dollars a year?[1]

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2013/06/18/top-
paid-...](http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2013/06/18/top-paid-tech-
ceos/)

~~~
JesperRavn
_> Who gets to determine whether it's expensive or not?_

The real test is: are there people who could be doing this job, but aren't
(and are making less money because of this). If this is true, then the market
is not in equilibrium and it is appropriate to label STEM employees as
"expensive".

High wages are not good in themselves, and neither are low wages. What is good
is when markets operate properly and resources (including human resources) are
allocated in the most efficient way. That might involve more people going into
STEM fields, and tech salaries going down as a result. In other fields, like
medicine, people would come up with all sorts of excuses to protect the
benefits that their in-group receive, to the detriment of other potential
workers. I think that in tech we are uniquely able to go beyond this flawed
thinking.

~~~
AdieuToLogic
I'm not following your logic.

You orginally said:

> If STEM talent is expensive, that means there is not enough of it and we
> should encourage more.

(aside: correlation != causation)

Then "greenyoda" said:

> The fact that we're creating more STEM grads each year than we have jobs for
> seems to suggest that we already have too many of them, not too few.

To which you replied:

> The real test is: are there people who could be doing this job, but aren't

The answer to this appears to be "yes", for the reason "greenyoda" states and
the article presents:

> Teitelbaum stresses a fact of the labor market: contrary to the warnings
> from a variety of panels and roundtables, public and private employers who
> might hire STEM workers have not been creating enough positions for all the
> people currently being trained to fill them.

Perhaps one of the reasons STEM talent is expensive is because there are many
which acquire degrees in these fields, yet few which are skilled in performing
to expectations?

EDIT: clarified the origination of the last quote.

