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3.
Stem Jobs
The Good
"Workers with associate's degrees in STEM fields out-earn 63 percent of people
who have bachelor's degrees in other fields. Almost half of workers with
bachelor's degrees in STEM fields out-earn workers with Ph.D.'s in other fields,
according to the Georgetown University
Center on Education and the Workforce" STEM
is the new Liberal Arts where graduates and end
up in any many careers.
The Bad
But America might very well have plenty of STEM specialists already. So many, in
fact, that the job prospects for STEM graduates are actually pretty dismal.
Perhaps that’s the point. 1.
Do We Really Have a Scientist Shortage?
2.
Stem labor shortages Microsoft report distorts!
Some feel an oversupply in STEM graduates already exists..
Recently,
Derek Lowe, a medical chemist of pipeline.corante.com wants
innovation. "America Does Not Have a Scientist Shortage" he blasts in his
one-page Discover magazine 10/12 article. "In reality, the United
States has been producing plenty of scientists." Graduates are up 35% in a
decade but they languish in post-doctoral positions. U.S. companies can pay
$55,000 for a domestic scientist or pay $6,000 for an Indian scientist. "We
need to identify the best and expose them to real research..." Spur
them on with contests. "We are on the right track with big-money contests like
XPrize." There are many such contests. Determining which of the new
companies providing seed money for contests could bring substantial return.
Supply is up, demand lags, creative minds needed.
The Ugly Truth
If
you are good at STEM stuff and are willing to study more than the non-STEM
majors, Go For It because that is where you best job will be. STEM
graduates are often are our best and brightest. They used to major in Liberal
Arts and go to work for investment houses on Wall Street, no more.
Stem
majors do more work, earn higher wages.
See
The
skills gap is phony period and
Most
New Jobs Don't Require College Education
businessinsider.com/do-we-need-more-science-majors-2013-9
Abundant
world-wide supply means wages will fall.
Bill Gates has been
touring the U.S. in early 2013 lobbying for newly minted U.S. foreign college
graduates to get visas to stay, work and maybe settle. This increase in supply
will push wages down and because all new graduates know new technology and often
bring more drive to the job, will force workers with twenty years experience to
change career. The useful life of programmers is dropping fast and those
devoting time and money to education should be aware of this.
Edited and
written by Walter
Antoniotti,
Copyright 21st
Century Learning Products All Rights Reserved
Job Polarization
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4
Siemens Seeks Apprentices from the Rest of Europe
"...
After
graduating from the National Technical University of Athens [a five year prestige's
school], Vlasios Ntizos," "..., is one of 29 European youths who
were chosen by Germany’s biggest engineering company." He
beat out 1,000 Greek student applicants. Siemens had 45,000 applicants for
this year's apprenticeship class.
"Siemens spends about €177 million ($222 million) each
year on apprentices (they get paid roughly $1,000 a month), with 1,350
trainees and students passing through its facilities in Berlin. A regular
apprentice costs as much as €100,000 for a three-year program, which
Siemens hopes fosters a sense of loyalty that will last a lifetime."
"The country’s [Germany] vocational education system—built on
a centuries-old guild tradition that combines state-funded classroom
sessions with practical training by companies who pay apprentices modest
salaries—offers more than half a million high school graduates a year of
hands-on education in hundreds of professions as a respected alternative
to a university degree. The system has helped keep youth unemployment at
7.9 percent, the lowest rate in Europe." [U.S. with four
times the population would need a 2,000,000 student apprenticeship program
to compete.] Edited 1/30/13
5.
McKinsey Consultancy More Vocational Education
"McKinsey, a consultancy, reports that only 43% of employers in the
nine countries that it has studied in depth (America, Brazil, Britain, Germany,
India, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) think that they can find enough
skilled entry-level workers."... "The best way to do this is to revamp
vocational education, which outside the German-speaking world has been treated
as the ginger stepchild of the education system." "...some far-sighted
countries, schools and firms are busy reinventing vocational education, McKinsey
argues. South Korea has created a network of vocational schools—called “meister”
schools, from the German for “master craftsman”—to reduce the country’s shortage
of machine operators and plumbers." "...Academic drift is one of the most
powerful forces in educational life: look at the way Britain’s technical schools
were allowed to wither on the vine and its polytechnics converted into
universities. [Editor's Note: The oversupply of academically directed
students has brought down salaries. Vocational training is for increasing non-
routine cognitive jobs.
"Germany’s vaunted dual-education
system is its latest export hit
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, Germany’s labor minister,
likes to point out that the two European Union countries with
the lowest unemployment, especially among the young, have
dual-education systems: Austria and Germany. Like Switzerland,
they have a tradition of combining apprenticeships with formal
schooling for the young “so that education is always tied to
demand,” she says. When youths graduate, they often have jobs to
walk into."
...". Germany recently signed memoranda with
Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain to help set
up vocational-education systems."
..."Youths not interested in, or qualified for, university sign up for a
program in which they work three or four days a week for a firm that pays them
and teaches relevant skills. The rest of the time they spend in school,
completing mostly specialized courses."
....'About two in three young Germans go through this system and into about
350 careers. Some end up in blue-collar jobs, others in sales and marketing,
shipping and agriculture, or pharmacology and accounting. The practical nature
of the education is an advantage, as is the mutual screening between potential
employers and employees during training."
THE ARTICLE ENDS BY POINTING OUT THAT ..."German success today surely owes
more to its labor-market and welfare reforms of a decade ago and to unions’ wage
restraint. In an ageing and shrinking population, demography also helps, as
fewer German graduates choose among more open jobs."
Sources:
Global Economic Intersection,
The Economist,
Seeking Alpha
Businessweek,
The Week ,
USA Today,
Business Insider ..
See
claims-skills-shortages-manufacturing-overblown
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