ACS immediate-past president Donna Nelson's signature issue was employment, and so this week's C&EN has her final comment on her task force on the issue. The policy prescriptions were a combination of pleasing and bemusing:
Increase transparency in chemical education and employment. ACS should continue to convey the benefits chemistry provides to our lives; however, we must also convey that there is no shortage of traditional chemists. The following 2016–26 Bureau of Labor Statistics projections (data.bls.gov/projections/occupationProj) highlight shifting dynamics in chemical employment: biochemists and biophysicists: +11.3%, post-secondary chemistry teachers: +9.9%, chemists: +6.5%, chemical technicians: +3.9%, chemical engineers: +2.5%, chemical plant and system operators: –3.1%, and chemical equipment operators: –3.6%. (CJ's note: as a benchmark, all jobs are expected to increase at a rate of 7% for the next 10 years.) Meanwhile, ACS New Graduate Survey data show new graduate unemployment growing disproportionately faster than ACS member unemployment. Inflation-adjusted salaries for new graduates at all degree levels are flat or decreasing. These trends also hold for more experienced ACS members. Employment information about the wide range of chemistry careers should be provided to aid students in career decisions.
Review and revise higher education programs to prepare students for the changing employment options of chemists and chemical professionals. The educational system provides outstanding researchers, but the demand for them is far below the supply. For each faculty opening, dozens to hundreds of chemists apply. Some applicants hold two to three postdoctoral positions, broadening their experiences while seeking an academic appointment.
Current chemistry degree course requirements are misaligned with employer expectations of graduates’ skills. Employers seek individuals who have practical work experience and are technologically savvy and have foundational skills such as adaptability, problem-solving ability, and leadership skills. Yet many college graduates entering the labor pool aren’t equipped with these essential skills.
Graduates need educational programs to supply and strengthen these skills. Social, cultural, and professional training, applied courses, and internships can improve postgraduate employability. ACS-approved degree programs should be evaluated for their use in producing employable chemists. Cross-functional training, which bridges new and traditional fields of chemistry, should be evaluated for its impact on student employment prospects.There are other policy prescriptions, but I'd like to mention that the top two are, in my opinion, correctly prioritized. I think that the Comment fails to note that the projections are issued every two years, so they are likely to change. (Also, I think it's important to note that "post-secondary chemistry teachers" covers everyone from adjuncts to full professors - where do we think the job growth is happening?)
I'm a bit bemused at basically making a 'soft skills' argument about chemistry graduates - does anyone really think that the reason that chemistry B.S. holders aren't being hired is that they don't have enough adaptability? I would point the finger straight at the overall lack of entry-level bachelor's oriented positions. I do commend the Task Force (and Comment) for suggesting that "ACS-approved degree programs should be evaluated for their use in producing employable chemists." I'd like to hear more about this.
It's good that the ACS is thinking about this, and I thank immediate-past President Nelson for bringing it to the fore. I encourage the Task Force to think more about it, and to provide policy prescriptions that the Society and its membership to act on. Moreover, I ask the Task Force (and the Society) two more questions:
1. In 2018, will we have the same statistical tools or better statistical tools for quantitatively determining the quality of the United States chemistry job market than we did in 2008?Readers, what are your questions?
2. What is the Society doing to prepare its membership for the next recession? \
CJ: Can we cut the crap and tell us in simple American English, how on Earth they are going to make chemistry major employable? Short of that, other excuse and studies are just simply bull crap that each successive ACS president makes statement upon becoming one and at the time of leaving!
ReplyDeleteWhat needs to happen is that universities need to produce fewer graduates in Chemistry. At the undergraduate level, nothing will happen because nobody would want to deter someone for pursuing something they may really enjoy. At the PhD level, nothing will happen for the simple reason that graduate schools need cheap labor to do experiments. Its a great time to be a faculty member in Chem at an R1 with all the talent you have to choose from...why would they want to mess with that?
ReplyDeleteIncreased transparency in employment numbers could curb graduates. Particularly in undergrad.
ReplyDeleteChemistry is not a marketable degree anymore, period. At the bachelor's level, if you are able to secure some type of employment, the jobs pay the equivalent of what you'd make working at Walmart or some other non degree requiring job. Getting a Master's degree requires that you specialize in some area of chemistry and that is a coin flip because there are very few niche fields outside of polymer chemistry that are marketable. So guess what? You are left competing with Bachelor's level chemists and employers see you as "too expensive" because of the extra letters after your name. PH.D is pretty much useless. You're priced out of Bachelor's and Master's level jobs and trying to get into academia is almost impossible. You spend the rest of your 20's in a Ph.D program and you're doing post-docs well into your mid-thirties working for slave wages while hoping to land that elusive academia job. You could get an industry job, but once again, it must be in a niche field. Those jobs lack any real stability anyhow. I was lucky enough to have a professor in grad school be brutally honest with me. He would turn his pockets inside out and say "all I have is a penny and this piece of lint". He'd put the penny and the lint in the palm of my hand. Eluding to the fact that studying chemistry could lead to eventual poverty. He told me, "you can't do this forever and I would be much better off becoming a school teacher". I wish more professors would be honest with their students. I wish the ACS would be honest with their figures and the prospects for this field. To receive all of this education and you can only command monotonous QA-type shift work that pays $12-$14 is an insult. I don't see job prospects increasing 7% a year. I would say more like 1% or less.
ReplyDeleteJeez, Merry Christmas to you too!
Delete@ anonymous 7.52 PM and about the statement.....post-docs well into your mid-thirties. Well, I do know some folks where I work(in academia) who are post-docs jumping from group to group for a good 15+ years! On being asked as to why they do not want a regular job, I was informed that they get max salary (at NIH level 53, 000 $/yr and then some), your benefits taken care of, and you can also qualify for your children getting some fee waiver etc. Go figure that out! And, this job too is getting crowded as many qualified PhD with tons of experience are available-courtesy, the big pharma layoffs! In these turbulent times and the direction we are headed if the trend continue, no jobs are too small!
DeleteI am one of these people that you describe. However, if I lost my job, I would have no chance getting a new one with all the cheap overseas labor available. So its not all a bed of roses.
Delete" all jobs are expected to increase at a rate of 7% for the next 10 years."
ReplyDeleteI'm unclear how this is possible. GDP grows 2-4%/year, and the US population increase 2-3%/year. Mathematically I don't see how jobs could be expected to grow 7% annually.
it isnt 7% annually. its 7% from 2016 to 2017 (10 years)
ReplyDelete2016 to 2026, sorry
DeleteI quit my job as a chemist to change fields to be a full stack engineer. Survival as a chemist can only last for so long. Not sure why complain about something that everyone already knows: job security is terrible and you can be outsourced. I understand we love to do research and science but really do yourself a favor and pivot before you're in the next round of layoffs. You might not be so miserable. You choose to be a victim otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI majored in chemistry in the mid 70s over other technical fields that I loved equally because I was assured by my professors that there were excellent employment opportunities. I had seen poor, and I wanted nothing more to do with it. When I started grad school in 77 the fifth year students were getting typically six to eight offers from top industrial labs such as Dow Midland, Exxon, Mobil, DuPont, and Union Carbide. Even as I decided to postdoc and pursue an academic career in 82 I was getting unsolicited industrial job offers from instrument companies and major petrochemical CR&D labs. Then the Union Carbide layoffs happened in 83, and it kept getting worse every year. By the mid 80s half the rotators at NSF were mid career scientists recently laid off by industry. But Lectures were rare, and academic employment opportunities were still reasonably available for top graduates from top 30 programs. In the past 25 years many of the once proud industrial labs have either ceased to exist or withered and morphed into something else. And those instrument companies mostly don’t exist anymore. And in academia half or so of undergraduate contact hours (weighted by enrollment) are taught by lectures or even part time adjuncts. In the late 70s and very early 80s though it seemed like you could have a great career making chemical measurements and traveling to conferences to share your findings.
ReplyDeleteAh - jobs in the 70's and early 80's.... Interviewing at those companies - Dow Midland, Exxon, Mobil, DuPont, and Union Carbide (and Shell, Monsanto, etc.) - meant that you were picked up at the airport by a chauffer in a stretch limo, with you as the only passenger, to take you to your hotel. Those days are looooong gone.
DeleteOh come-on. I bet this guy was picked up in a stretch limo. Maybe the only one this decade:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1gMr0FeM9s
Its these ads that make my parents think Im a failure for not getting a great job as a PhD chemist. MOAR stem indeed.
I have an idea: In order for chemistry departments to be ACS certified, make a requirement that at least one full time faculty member have at least 5 years of industrial experience.
ReplyDelete