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| Credit: Prof. David Cahill |
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| Credit: Sam Drew |
...The Human Resources Manager at Nascote Industries Jeff Dahlquist says they seek out those who want to return home or stay in the area. He's looking at having to replace a quarter of their maintenance staff who are over 55 years of age.
"We continue to get more and more technical in our jobs. What we're finding out from some of the young folks coming in that technology is just an extension of their arm. They learn that part of it really quick. It's the problem solving skills and the ability to get your hands dirty and willingness to get your hands dirty that is much of the key," said Dahlquist.
The President of Jarco in Salem Tracy Timmerman says they stayed in Salem because of the company's work force, but are now looking to have replace those in their 50's and 60's who grew up in the business.
"You don't have the farming kids out there that know how to fix anything coming off the farm and coming into industry anymore. You are starting at a lower level. It's not an insult, it's just the fact. The people coming in know how to use their iPhone and they know how to play their video games, but they don't know what size a 9/16th wrench is. It's a different world that we live in," said Timmerman.
The lead instructor and employment counselor at the Southern Illinois Carpenters Apprenticeship Program Kenny Rose says their workforce is also getting older and he's not finding a lot of interest among younger people...I could tee off about the crack about farming kids and their iPhones, but we'll just let that slide. Instead... where the $$%# are the 40 year olds? This is the thing about every organization that complains about having to replace 50 and 60 year old people: where are the 40 and 50 year olds that you should have been training up to replace them? Your problem didn't start last week - it started 10 years ago.
Through the first half of 2017, more than a quarter of America's job openings in tech were located in just eight major metropolitan areas, according to new research that also suggests the bulk of the industry's highest-paying jobs are consolidating around just a handful of cities across the country.
Jed Kolko, chief economist at employment hub Indeed, on Tuesday unveiled new research digging into tech employment in America. It showed just eight metro areas – those centered around San Jose, California; the District of Columbia; Baltimore; Seattle; Raleigh, North Carolina; San Francisco; Austin, Texas; and Boston – accounted for 27 percent of all tech job postings during the first half of the year.
Comparatively, that same group accounted for just 13 percent of all job postings across the country. Yet in some sense, Kolko indicated, that tech-heavy concentration is unsurprising, given the same cities accounted for 26.5 percent of tech job openings back in 2013.The Wall Street Journal's headline was even more to the point: "The Best $100,000+ Tech Jobs Are Increasingly Concentrated in Just 8 Cities."
Higher-salary technology occupations are becoming increasingly concentrated, while lower-salary technology jobs are dispersing slightly to the rest of the country. In this sense, the US technology jobs landscape is becoming more unequal—yet another example of how the country is becoming increasingly differentiated and polarized.I have zero doubt the same trends are true of chemistry.
Prompted by these remarks, Robert Lees, a program manager at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences who oversees synthetic organic chemistry grants, commented that several of the speakers so far felt the need to defend the field of organic chemistry and asked, “Where is this feeling that you’re under attack coming from?”
Lees wondered if the feeling of threat stems from worries about funding for organic research. From his perspective at NIGMS, he said that synthesis isn’t facing any more stress than other scientific disciplines and that he hopes that chemistry students aren’t going to other areas out of fear of a lack of funding opportunities.
Kozlowski responded by reiterating her sentiments about the need for organic research and stressed to the student attendees, “I think there’s miles of open space.”
Although Baran wasn’t present for the exchange, he told C&EN that he disagrees with Lees and emphasized that there aren’t nearly as many institutions funding pure synthesis as there are institutions funding fields like biology.This is not the only time that Professor Baran has expressed sentiments that chemistry is disproportionately underfunded (my words, not his) compared to other fields. Here, you have a subject matter expert (Robert Lees) who disagrees with him.
Summary of Position
Within the Department of Chemistry in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, the candidate will teach undergraduate courses in organic chemistry as well as graduate courses, including organic synthesis, and to develop new courses. The faculty member will be responsible for maintaining a productive program of research and scholarship in the field of organic chemistry, and organic synthesis and its applications to problems in chemical biology (e.g. biological catalysis, structural biology, biomaterials or other related areas). Will also advise and mentor undergraduate and graduate level students.
Acceptable Minimum Qualifications
Candidates must possess a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry. Experience must include 4 years of post-doctoral research experience in the field of Organic Chemistry (emphasis CJ's) and at least one academic year of post-secondary teaching experience pre or post Ph.D. Demonstrated research experience with publications in peer-reviewed journals is required.
Documents Needed to Apply
Required Documents4 years?!?! Chemists aren't biologists!
Resume/Vita
It’s not that my postings on Indeed, LinkedIn and other career sites weren’t explicit in outlining desired qualifications. I added instructions urging candidates to contact us only if they had backgrounds in journalism, P.R. or law. There was nothing to suggest I was looking for a fiscal benefits analyst, emergency medical technician or brand ambassador, but they showed up anyway.
...I’m all for people crossing the professional divide. America’s work force is going through tumult, as even the superskilled see their jobs eliminated or made obsolete by technology. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a steady decline in the average tenure of wage and salaried workers — most recently at 4.2 years, down from 4.6 in 2014....
...Perhaps that’s why so many showcased accomplishments that sounded machine-made, as in “liaise with field managers to create metric reports in line with KPIs.” There were also digital marketers lauding their ability to “increase channel awareness and implement impactful distribution modes to engage target audiences.” I was more drawn to the waitress who described her duties with the clarity of E. B. White: “Explain dishes on menu to patrons and make recommendations; take orders and relay them to kitchen; calculate meal costs and add taxes to final bill.” She was elevated to the “maybe” pile.
UNION, Ill. — It’s not easy selling a Wild West Town theme park located 60 miles northwest of Chicago, as Larry and Helene Donley have discovered.
The octogenarian couple have run the place for 43 years and are finally ready to retire. But their sons, Randy and Mike, who are in their early 60s and have helped manage it, are keen for other challenges....
There is a hitch, however: The elder Donleys don’t want someone to change the property into, say, a concert space, as a potential buyer once suggested. Ideally, they want things to continue in their current Howdy Doody-esque form, right down to the gold-panning pavilion, the live action Wild West show, and kiddie rides on the 19th-century miniature locomotive.
...The current asking price is $7 million, but Larry Donley has turned away people who didn’t seem willing or likely to preserve it as is....
...Such is the difficulty of selling a family heirloom business that no one else in the family really wants to run.
Does this frustrate the younger generations? They say no, and insist they are committed to operating the park until they find that elusive buyer. “The park was never our dream,” Randy, the younger son, said of himself and his brother, who auction antique phonographs, jukeboxes and other 20th-century Americana as their principal occupation. As for their father, however, “He really believes that that person is out there.”
As with many amusement parks, the bulk of the revenue — some of it from the $17-a-person admission — has to come in between May and the end of October. Mike Donley wouldn’t discuss financial details, but he said the park had earned the family enough to sustain three generations over the decades. Mike and Randy Donley both say it is profitable.I left my other wallet in the other room, so I don't think I have the spare seven million dollars to buy the place, but it is interesting to me how difficult it is for families to pass a business from one generation to the next. It's also interesting how difficult it is, when children want to learn the family business, for them to actually do it in at the same level of success as their parents.)
Orbital ATK’s Missile Products Division has exciting opportunity for a Scientist located at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory near Cumberland, MD. This position will support the development and manufacture of propellant, explosive and adhesive formulations for rocket motor and warhead programs.B.S. with 0-10 years experience energetics, adhesives or other chemistry field desired; M.S./Ph.D. preferred.
Neighbor: What do you do?It's not like it was a showstopper - just a funny moment in the conversation where I wish that I had something to draw people in and get them to talk about chemistry.
CJ: I am a chemist.
Neighbor: [acting impressed] oh!
CJ: [looks a little sheepish] so what brings you to Forest City?
"A successful, well-known chemist admitted that they probably wouldn't have been hired tenure-track today."That's not the first time I've heard senior professors express such a comment, so I threw it out there on Twitter:
To senior professors among chemTweeps:
Did you hear your elders say "I wouldn't have been qualified today" back when you were younger?I thought the most thoughtful answer came from friend-of-the-blog Chris Cramer:
you know, it's more subtle than it sounds. when a senior faculty member says that, it's not really a "gosh, kids are smarter nowadays"
it's more recognition that the "frontiers" of the field have moved (as they must) so that OUR proposals from xx years ago would now be / routine and uncompetitive. In addition, the graphical and word processing tools have advanced enormously, so the quality of proposals /and presentations is dramatically changed relative to, say, 20 yrs ago.I have no doubt that there has been a general climb in the qualifications needed to become an assistant professor over the years. However, it's not clear to me that anyone has any statistical data (yet!) on this issue. Readers, what do you think? Are we experiencing qualification creep? Have you seen it? When will it end?
The issue is stark in the decision of whether to employ graduate students, postdoctoral fellows or staff scientists to conduct lab research. Nationally, graduate students average a stipend of about $26,000 annually; in addition, they represent approximately an additional $16,000 or more for tuition and other student costs. Their hourly “pay rate,” then, can be between $19.50 and $27.50.
Postdoctoral fellows are paid more. But they also have no tuition costs and at most universities have few additional benefits. Assuming a university follows the NIH benchmark of $43,692 for a first-year postdoc, their hourly rate comes to around $17 to $18, depending on the field.
Staff scientists start at about $60,000 to $75,000, coming out to an hourly rate of about $30.00. But that doesn’t reflect their full cost, which includes much more extensive benefits than students or postdocs.
Given this incentive structure, Stephan explained, it isn’t hard to understand the relative scarcity of staff scientists. Her own study found that at least 72 percent of academic research papers had postdocs or grad students as their first author. In the NSF’s annual survey, life science PhD graduates with definite job commitments have fallen from a peak of 70% in 1994 to 58% in 2014—and most of those are going to postdoc positions, not permanent jobs.Stephan really believes in the ameliorative power of staff scientists, but that's because she believes that the best way to deal with the problem of "too many Ph.D.s" is to raise their price. She's an economist, so that's the tool for creating scarcity. (Makes sense, I gotta say.)
BOSTON (Reuters) - A research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was arrested on Wednesday on charges that he engaged in insider trading based on information he obtained from his wife, a corporate lawyer working on a deal involving a mining company.
Fei Yan, 31, was arrested in Massachusetts after federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused him of trading last year on inside information about South Africa's Sibanye Gold Ltd planned $2.2 billion acquisition of Stillwater Mining.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a related lawsuit accused Yan of netting $120,000 by placing trades ahead of the Stillwater deal and another merger based on information he obtained from his wife, an associate at a corporate law firm....
...Yan, a citizen of China, had been employed as a post-doctoral associate in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics, according to Kimberly Allen, a spokeswoman for MIT. She referred further comments to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan.
He was charged in a criminal complaint with securities fraud and wire fraud. Following a hearing in federal court in Boston, Yan was released on a $500,000 unsecured bond....You know, I knew a couple of folks who traded equities in graduate school, but, for the most part, no one in graduate school has any information that is really worth trading on. It's not like your latest NMR result is going to affect the value of any corporation by any significant amount (in school, anyway.)
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| With apologies to Edward Lodewijk Van Halen |
Companies need scientists for R&D, of course, but a new study finds that U.S. manufacturing companies seeking high productivity and earnings should consider hiring scientists for jobs other than R&D as well.The paper (by Barth et al.) included this fascinating set of statistics about industrial employment of scientists:
We focus on manufacturing for three reasons. First, manufacturing is a lead sector in productivity growth. Between 1990 and 2016 the average annual rate of labor productivity increased at 3.5% per year in manufacturing compared to 2.0% in the entire economy. Second, industrial R&D and employment of scientists and engineers is disproportionately concentrated in manufacturing. While manufacturing establishments employ 10% of the work force in industry, they employ 20% of scientists and engineers in industry, and manufacturing firms employ over 60% of R&D scientists and engineers in industry.Curious to know the trend in employment over the last 26 years, and if the R&D intensity of those manufacturing firms has gone up or down.
The role of the Research Informatics Field Application Scientist is to maximize PerkinElmer’s commercial success within EMEA by specializing in products that emphasize PerkinElmer’s Informatics capabilities.
The individual will work with the regional marketing team to promote world-class products by packaging, positioning and promoting throughout the Field Sales organization in aim to increase PerkinElmer’s market share.
While headhunters can get lofty retainers for executive positions, a 16-year low unemployment rate and a record-high number of job openings are turning workers across all sorts of industries -- from construction to trucking to software engineering -- into hot commodities. The need is so dire that employers are handing out large signing bonuses, giving second looks to people with blemishes on their resumes and reaching out to professional recruiters more than ever.
The numbers show why that’s the case: There were 1.17 unemployed job seekers for every vacancy in April, the second-lowest ratio in data going back to 2000. That compares with a post-recession peak of 6.65 people per job opening in July 2009. Revenue for U.S. search-and-placement services rose to $21.9 billion in 2016, almost triple the level in 2009, according to estimates from the American Staffing Association.So. Anyone getting signing bonuses these days? Big Pharma handing out bonuses to new Ph.D. chemists these days? Let's have it.
