

The STEM Crisis is a Myth - mattquiros
http://m.spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

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pg
"Even in the computer and IT industry, the sector that employs the most STEM
workers and is expected to grow the most over the next 5 to 10 years, not
everyone who wants a job can find one. A recent study by the Economic Policy
Institute (EPI), a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., found that
more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their
chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are
no jobs available."

Yet another article that hinges on the critical mistake that seems to underpin
all these anti-immigration op-eds: that all workers trained in x are
interchangeable.

Any programmer knows this isn't true-- that there is a huge difference between
great programmers and people who are merely trained in computer science. And
that there is a genuine shortage of the former in former in Silicon Valley.

Incidentally, the Economic Policy Institute is not merely "liberal-leaning."
It was created by labor unions to spread precisely this sort of message.

~~~
don_draper
Money matters. I'm almost certain you know of people working in other (non
programming) fields that _were_ good programmers and if offered a 250K salary
they would go back to programming, but they won't for a 120K salary. Employers
need to stop whining and pay more.

Edit: I can think of plenty of people (most former coworkers, actually) that
work for the Accentures and IBMs because they got, among other things, more
pay by working as a program manager. And they would love to leave that job and
work as a programmer if they could get paid the same and not worry about their
job being outsourced.

[http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2012-H1B-Visa-
Sponsor.aspx...](http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2012-H1B-Visa-
Sponsor.aspx?P=1)

~~~
pg
No, actually, I can't think of one person I know who left programming because
it didn't pay well enough.

~~~
don_draper
We must be living in different worlds then. I've seen many people leave
programming to get a job in program management because those jobs a) are not
easily outsourced and b) get healthy pay increases each year.

~~~
muzz
and perhaps c) are considered careers for people older than 35

just wondering, when an engineer is promoted to manager, is he no longer a
STEM worker? and isn't he no longer employed in the field of his educational
background?

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tokenadult
Submitted four weeks ago under canonical URL with more than 100 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6305671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6305671)

And I think patio11's top-level (and apparently highest-karma) comment in the
earlier thread covers the most essential issues. People in STEM occupations
with strong skill sets are still in very high demand, while possibly there are
a lot more people with STEM degrees but weaker skill sets who wonder why they
have trouble finding jobs.

~~~
guiambros
Thanks for the link. Excellent comments there.

Too bad that HN can't dedup canonical URLs properly. It wouldn't be that hard
- just analyze the title, domain, URL, samples of the article.

pg: maybe crowdsource development and start accepting pull requests?

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tosseraccount
Prices for all goods and services are determined by supply and demand. The
best ways to increase supply of labor is increase wages and on the job
training. This will send a signal to potential workers to seek work in the
field. The government does not need increase subsides to wealthy industries
with special access to non-immigrant guest workers and free training programs.
Business can solve this "problem" with good wages. Every business complains
about paying for talent, and workers always want a little more. They can both
set the market rate for wages which will determine supply of labor.

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bostik
From the article - _To parse the simultaneous claims of both a shortage and a
surplus of STEM workers [...]_

Or to put it another way: there is no shortage of applicants, but there sure
is a shortage of good ones.

~~~
randomdata
That is the impression I have always gone away with when this subject comes
up. Companies don't want STEM workers, they want the "top 1%" of STEM workers.
There is a shortage of them, but training more people in the field will not
necessarily increase the suitable labor pool.

~~~
walid
I also find that a lot of the problem is that many companies want a _ready_
STEM worker. In other words someone who can get up and going immediately.
Business plans require it but such a person is specialized and cannot have got
up and running without dabbling in the field either alone or in another job.
So you get a lot of able STEM workers not well honed in any specialty and get
rejected for a big job.

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finkin1
My girlfriend graduated valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA majoring in math and
minoring in physics, including completing a 4 month internship at NASA, and
she has been unable to find a job related to either of those fields for over a
year now. Every job she's looked at/applied for requires 1-2 years of
experience or more education. To live and pay off debt she taught herself
HTML/CSS and some web programming and has been working freelance. She'd still
love a job in math or physics. She might go back to school, but is hesitant to
go into more debt without knowing she can get a job in her field of study.
Everyone told her in college that she would have no problem finding a job
studying math/physics.

~~~
don_draper
So put your business guy hat on, who only cares about the bottom line. You
could train her for 2 months or so and she might work out, or you could do a
temp hire from an outsourcing company. Which is less risk, easier and gets
results sooner?

I don't agree with that kind of thinking but that's basically what is going
on. What about the long term for that organization, community and country? The
business guy is not thinking about that.

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pkj
Duplicate (mobile version) of an earlier submission. See the earlier
discussion at

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6305671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6305671)

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coldcode
Actual research on the topic instead of punditry. A good article that will
sadly sway no politician.

~~~
GhotiFish
but he concludes stating that giving everyone a grounding in STEM is a good
idea.

Insisting there's a shortage is an economic method to inflate study in that
area. How would he rather things change? I sure hope it's not "You need to
take a heap of courses you're not interested in because maybe it will help you
later"

That's the same line someone gave me with art and literature courses. I am not
fond of that person, BTW.

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VLM
There is a minor blind spot of the often repeated but completely false claim
that there are no STEM jobs or STEM activity of any sort outside SV/Manhattan,
so its perfectly statistically possible for a shortage of STEM grads willing
to for for $7.25/hr in SV/Manhattan to exist, therefore "the entire nation"
has a STEM shortage, although solely in two relatively microscopic geographic
locations. I assure you there is NO SHORTAGE of qualified STEM folks in, say,
Wisconsin. Qualified STEM folks willing to work for $7.25/hr? Yes. Qualified
STEM folks willing to work at Starbucks and sling coffee? Yes.

Another tangent on the topic is "real STEM" work vs business successes. You
don't exactly need Knuth to implement "We're gonna serve ads to IRC
implemented over SMS reimplemented over a smartphone app" "We're going to
implement an online workforce automation website for middle school girls by
making a database of peoples friends and then they can play virtual farm games
with each other and then we'll sell ads and database dumps". What I'm getting
at, is if you want to implement the great wall of china, your limit is always
going to be logistics issues relating to grunts with shovels and wheelbarrows,
not PHD level theoretical civil engineer problems.

So add some geographic concerns, and add some discussion of real STEM vs grunt
labor type of tasks to the in a previously STEM-ish field.

Other than those two mostly untouched topics, its a good article with no
obvious mistakes in what topics were covered.

