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| Slide found at acswebinars.org |
Well, no. If you search "chemistry", you get 133 positions, including a goodly number of academic positions and tutoring positions. If you search "chemical engineering", you get 197 positions. This gives a grand total of 330 positions, which is 21 short of what I would refer to as "nearly 400" positions.
However, if you input the search term "chemist" and "chemical engineer" into the database, you get a much smaller number. 26 and 113 positions, respectively. While this is a really healthy number of positions for a particular region, it's far more in line with reality than Mr. Dearth's claim.
I suppose that this claim could have been time-dependent, so there are indeed mitigating circumstances. But count me skeptical. (And don't get me started on those retirement claims...)
Where I work, there is indeed going to be a lot of retirements in the next 5 years. We have many people with 30+ years of service, that is if anyone can afford to retire anymore. These guys do get pensions and 401Ks so they *should* be in ok shape.
ReplyDeletePittsburgh is indeed a good region with what seem to be a reasonable number of jobs. But i would call BS on that slide too.
ReplyDeleteThe part with "half the workforce will retire in 2000-2030" is great. You might as well say "the current workers will all be dead within a century so there's 100% job openings coming!"
Well, CJ, try to count industrial r&d jobs that require a doctorate and see how many opening you can come up with.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I don't follow. What are you asking me to do?
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the good CEO doesn't mention how many (if any) openings his company will have for chemists over the next year or two. Presumably this is something he would know about.
ReplyDeleteLanxess is the former commodity chemicals business of Bayer Corp., which is why the company is in Pittsburgh.
I'm getting tired of ACS promoting careers for chemists that then feature chemists who began as researchers, then got out of it as soon as possible. How about featuring chemists who want to work as chemists, and not something else.
Wonder if there are even 400 *real* positions in the whole US right now?
ReplyDeleteAm I alone in noticing Lanxess is an anagram of laxness, meaning 'lacking in rigor'. Perhaps that explains the figures.
ReplyDelete