Also from this week's C&EN, a funny/sad letter:
2. It's 45% because of the summer doldrums.
3. It's 50% because all the ads have migrated online.
Our chosen field of expertise? Well, yeah, that's a tough one... To quote the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook:
A recent issue of C&EN has just two classified ads, both for academic positions (June 15, page 37). Is this because of full employment, because downsizing is not over, or because of the summer doldrums? It makes one wonder about our chosen field of expertise.
Richard Adams1. It's not because of full employment.
Tucson
2. It's 45% because of the summer doldrums.
3. It's 50% because all the ads have migrated online.
Our chosen field of expertise? Well, yeah, that's a tough one... To quote the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook:
Employment of chemists and materials scientists is projected to grow 6 percent from 2012 to 2022, slower than the average for all occupations.Average for all occupations is 11%.
I wonder how they come up with that projected average occupational employment growth rate. My suspicion is that wands and cauldrons might be involved, as well as a disturbing quantity of dry ice, fudge, and maybe some wishful thinking.
ReplyDeleteIt would appear to be consistent with a 1.105% or so annual growth rate in employment across occupations, which doesn't sound too promising for the labor participation rate.
The population growth rate was only 0.71% in 2013 (the last year available) and the growth in working-age population probably even less due to the retiring boomers. 1.1% job growth actually sounds implausibly high to me, as that would imply an extra ~2.4% of the population (or about 4% of the available workforce) would gain jobs over those six years.
ReplyDeleteBut as the labor participation rate has decreased substantially over the last few years (thanks, Obama), there is a large pool of unemployed people that need jobs. Besides, I'd love to see the source for the population growth rate, as I'm pretty certain the US is gaining that much from immigration alone.
Delete4. downsizing is not over
ReplyDeleteDownsizing is never over.
ReplyDeleteRe: chemists employment growth -this almost always leads to my favorite paraphrase, "chemists can find non-traditional jobs or roles in other fields." Then why train to be a f*ng chemist? Give me break.
"Why train to be...." This is an issue where the ACS is very hard of hearing.
DeleteFor example: what happens when you try to use the C&EN website search engine to look for jobs using e.g. the key word "organic"? The search engine returns jobs which have nothing, i.e. 0%, to do with chemistry (the word "chemistry" never even appeared in those adverts). I have repeatedly asked ACS why this is so. The answer which I received had something to do with -as you wrote- "non-traditional jobs or roles in other fields". Of course, I asked (a) why a job which has nothing to do with chemistry should be appearing on the C&EN website and (b) on whose orders were such adverts allowed. The ACS wonk with whom I had been corresponding refused to answer those questions.
Oh, yeah. And I cc-ed Donna Nelson on those e-mails. She asked to be removed from the e-mail chain. So much for a new president whose campaign issues included employment issues. Guess she will just stick to gender issues, yada yada.
"refused to answer those questions"
Delete"asked to be removed from the e-mail chain"
Someone's not great at taking a hint, I see.
BLS numbers on the number of jobs in chemistry and the growth thereoff have been consistently wrong going back at least 15 years. This is when I clicked a link that you provided a few years ago and checked. They had the numbers of jobs going back to 1995 or whatnot. It's easy enough to google predictions back from that time. They predicted more than ten percent increases over the next decade, etc... and it's still the same number of jobs in chemistry despite the population getting bigger. It's roughly the same regardless of economic performance, which actually means less due to economic and population growth, and also why the 6% figure is probably garbage. Plus, the boomers were supposed to retire from the industry by now (if industry gets rid of them when they are in their 50s and that was right around the recession), so this could spell trouble for available jobs for new graduates if the market is saturated.
ReplyDeleteIn 2000, according to the BLS, there were 99 thousand chemists according to a release I found by googling, and they projected future growth. Today there are 96 according to chemjobber's link. Real growth seems to have occurred in the 90s, but stalled for the last 15 years. Since the economy is doing better than in 2000, it's probably due to outsourcing manufacturing, and thus research. Still, it's not as huge of a hit as it could have been.
Delete"BLS numbers on the number of jobs in chemistry and the growth thereoff have been consistently wrong going back at least 15 years." This is no surprise, they keep mistakenly placing an "L" in the middle of their own acronym.
DeleteIf you can't find a job in industry or academia, consider a position with the federal, state, or local government. Most require a bachelor's degree, but an MS or PhD is is usually not a problem. Job specs are a guide; many organizations conduct some sort of research and your expertise would be welcome.
ReplyDeleteI'm being completely serious, can you or someone else with inside knowledge put together a guide for how to get through government job applications? If anybody has ever found a job through USAJobs, you know how onerous and painful the application process is. You have to register for a new account for like 3 different sites before you even get to the application for some of them! And everything I've read says they're intensely specific, so one mistake and your app gets tossed.
DeleteMy understanding is, if you're applying through USAJobs, you're not in the running.
DeleteThere are any number of institutions (universities included!) and companies that use on-line applications to waste the time of millions of legitimate job seekers, who would otherwise organize and start burning sh*t.
Delete"My understanding is, if you're applying through USAJobs, you're not in the running. "
DeleteThis is my understanding as well, and I've also heard EXACTLY this from people inside of labs such as Sandia. Job adverts on those sites are simply ruses to pay the piper on equal opportunities, etc. Your only hope of finding employment there is becoming a mentally retarded version of Bruce Jenner. And if any one of several outspoken presidential candidates has his way, then there will be way fewer openings for scientists with the gov't in a few years.
As the saying goes, "it's not what you know but who you know that counts". Or as I learned at universities "it's not what you know but who you BLOW that counts". That is why I am now concentrating more on face-to-face networking than internet job applications.
Civility, please.
DeleteCJ, I can tell you so many first-hand stories. For example, as faculty in the UK, co-ed students saw office hours as an opportunity to try to sit on my lap. I repeatedly told them to sit in the chair next to me.....
DeleteIn Germany, it was much worse.
Didn't realize Chem depts in the UK were represented with ladettes....
DeleteIf they had been female he might have stuck around; as it was...
Delete"Your only hope of finding employment there is becoming a mentally retarded version of Bruce Jenner." Best comment I've heard today.
Delete"And if any one of several outspoken presidential candidates has his way, then there will be way fewer openings for scientists with the gov't in a few years." Somehow I doubt this. I do hope that employment with certain agencies will be cut (the EPA especially is a threat to real science, and a known employer of both criminals and far-left wackos - neither of whom should be allowed near government). I also hope that spending at some agencies (NIH and NSF in particular) are given greater scrutiny to prevent out-and-out fraud. Usually, though, it's the anti-military and pro-social spending pols who suck up all the dollars in the room and impede R&D.
"And if any one of several outspoken presidential candidates has his way, then there will be way fewer openings for scientists with the gov't in a few years."
DeleteIf Hillary's presidency would be anything like Bill's was, defense R&D and total R&D spending would both decline - which is likely to *gasp* reduce employment for scientists, so I'm not sure why you'd leave her out of this.
http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/DefNon_1.jpg
Food stamp spending increased by an amount larger than the NIH budget in 2008-2013. Wonder how that happened?
DeleteAt least the DOD funds research.
Move on, thank you.
DeleteResponding to the query of "Postdoc", your only real hope of landing a long-term job at a federal lab is to first be a post-doc there. Unless you are member of a minority group.
ReplyDeleteCJ, we know that you strive to give everyone a voice in your comment section, but I sure wish GC could be removed from this comment thread. (Don't do it. Let him keep talking.)
ReplyDeleteSigned, a member of a minority group at a university who sat on no one's lap to get this job.
In defense of GC:
Delete1st, his comment specifically called out federal labs.
2nd, while some will try to dispute this, being a qualified-underrepresented minority will make your application especially attractive in academia and most industrial vacancies. The "diversity" push in hiring is real. At my company, its not just lip service; the flipside is that it really seems to create a situation where qualified underrepresented minority candidates cannot be part of a truly fair evaluation.
Hello Anon 6:18 PM - I am glad to know that you have sat on no-one's lap to get your job. Most of my undergrad research students were women, and they, too also did not sit on anyone's lap to get their jobs. However there are also unfortunately those who are not so ethical, whether you wish to take that on board or not has no influence on human nature.
ReplyDeleteInstead of complaining about this sort of thing, you might thank me for not succumbing to what many, many faculty end up doing. Stop pretending that every human is a saint.
Please let me know if you would like further first-hand evidence of examples.
Let me be the first to congratulate you on not robbing banks as well.
Delete"And if any one of several outspoken presidential candidates has his way, then there will be way fewer openings for scientists with the gov't in a few years."
ReplyDeleteMy preceding quote arose from listening to a speech yesterday by Jeb Bush (on NPR) in which he stated that if elected, then he would reduce the number of federal employees by 67% through a process of attrition, e.g. retirements. With the exception of defense and security.