Endpoints News: "Trump executive order focuses on stockpiling raw materials for 'critical' drugs"

Via Endpoints News: 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday calling for health officials to build a six-month stockpile of active pharmaceutical ingredients for “critical” drugs in the US.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within HHS has 30 days to compile a list of the approximately 26 drugs, according to the executive order.

The order comes as the biopharma industry awaits details surrounding industry-specific tariffs, following the Department of Commerce’s Section 232 investigation which started in April.

There are also growing concerns that drugmakers could turn to cheaper sources, like China, for raw materials to ease the impact of US tariffs. This week, AbbVie detailed its plan to build an API factory in the US.

Like almost all governmental ideas, it makes a lot of sense. Surely you would want a stockpile of (I dunno) sufficient amounts of amoxicillin, and better the government to stockpile it than private individuals or organizations. I'm a little amused and/or suspicious that the government is going to source them "from domestic manufacturers where possible" - good luck with that, folks. [insert cynical comment here] 

Pfizer/Moderna reporting difficulty in hiring in Massachusetts for vaccine production

Via FiercePharma and the Boston Globe, recent testimony before the Massachusetts state legislature: 

During a hearing of the Massachusetts Legislative Manufacturing Caucus on Tuesday, representatives from two drugmakers with physical footprints in Massachusetts told lawmakers that it has become harder to refresh their workforces with skilled workers at a time when they are both looking to increase production.

“In 2020, we went through a strong effort to prepare for what we knew was coming in the fall, a really significant scale-up and increased pace of production. And through that we almost industrialized the hiring process, . . . but I think something that was easier last year was the initial recruiting and identification of capable and qualified staff,” Paul Granadillo, senior vice president of global supply chain for Moderna, said.

Moderna, which is based in Cambridge, produces some of its COVID-19 vaccine at its manufacturing technology center in Norwood. The company opened the Norwood facility in July 2018 and this May announced plans to more than double its square footage in part to accommodate a 50 percent increase in the production of the COVID-19 vaccine expected late this year or early in 2022.

“So I would say that one of our most important topics is continued access to capable and qualified individuals, both for [good manufacturing practice] production as well as for quality control,” Granadillo said.

The situation is similar for Pfizer, which manufactures the mRNA substance used in its COVID-19 vaccine at a facility in Andover. Jon Tucker, Pfizer’s global supply site leader for Andover, said that building a talent pipeline through an apprenticeship program run by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council’s sister group MassBioEd, through relationships with local universities and colleges, and more traditional recruitment methods has been a key priority.

FiercePharma used the "shortage" word to describe this, and of course I am naturally quite skeptical of this, i.e. in order to use the s-word, I think you need to demonstrate sustained wage increases over a long period of time (and ahead of inflation!) in order for me to really believe that. Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that both Pfizer and Moderna are experiencing some level of difficulty in picking up biopharma production workers in Massachusetts. 

There isn't a truck driver shortage?

From the in-house journal of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this fascinating article with a really interesting conclusion (emphasis mine):

...The occupation of truck driving is often portrayed by the industry and in the popular press as beset by high levels of turnover and persistent “labor shortages.” Our analysis of OES data agrees that the labor market for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers shows markers of a “tight” labor market over the period since 2003—employment in the occupation has been resilient, and nominal annual wages have persistently exceeded those of other blue-collar jobs with similar human capital requirements. While we do use ATA data to identify one segment of the trucking labor market (long-distance TL motor freight) that has experienced high and persistent turnover rates for decades, the overall picture is consistent with a market in which labor supply responds to increasing labor demand over time, and a deeper look does not find evidence of a secular shortage...

I've been reading economists talking to one another for about 10 years now, and there is one thing that is clear - very few of them will ever agree that there's a such thing as a labor shortage. 

Shortage of Chemists Scored by Committee

Draft and ROTC Eating Into Personnel Vital to Industry
March 7, 1942

A survey of 118 colleges, universities, and technical, schools conducted by the Defense Committee of the American Chemical Society shows an "appalling shortage" of trained individuals in chemistry and chemical engineering. Lack of technically trained men for industry is jeopardizing future production, according to the Committee, of which Professor Roger Adams, head of the department of chemistry at the University of Illinois, is chairman.

"By far the greatest proportionate demand is for those to be graduated at the doctorate level, most of whom have accepted positions pending receipt of their degrees," the Committee finds. "The colleges report almost without exception that chemical or chemical engineering alumni are all employed and that current demands cannot be supplied."

Shortage Emphasized Here

In response to the Committee's questionnaire, Harvard University declares that the shortage of trained chemists, especially at the doctor's level, is the most serious in its experience. The University of California states that "the Army and Navy have removed from the supply of men a large percentage of the more able students."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports that 42 per cent of the Seniors in its chemical engineering department will become reserve officers. The department of chemistry at M.I.T. is receiving more requests for chemists of all three grades as compared with the last three years, according to the report, and the graduates of June, 1942, with the Ph.D. or M.S. degree are placed at present to the extent of 82 per cent of the total.

(actual article, believe it or not)

STEM shortage in St. Louis

From my weekly dose of pain (a Google Alert for "STEM shortage), this tidbit from a tech entrepreneur in St. Louis: 

Citing a tremendous demand for programmers, McKelvey said that many people don’t realize that every company these days is a technology company. 

“We definitely have a STEM shortage in the United States and frankly worldwide, but it is profound in the United States,” he said. “We’re trying to hire engineers now at Square in St. Louis and we see the job market, although it’s not as bad as I think it was seven years ago when Jack and I decided not to have a technical office here in St. Louis.” 

While LaunchCode is part of the solution as well as developments in the Cortex Innovation District, the tech shortage remains acute in the area. 

“There is a huge tech shortage,” McKelvey said. “It is so huge that literally it is constraining the growth of every corporation in St. Louis.”

Literally! Constraining! The Growth! (allow me to be a tiny bit skeptical of this)  

Maybe it's the working conditions?

There's a trucker shortage, the Washington Post reports: 

...As the nation faces a historically low level of unemployment, trucking companies are doing what economists have said firms need to do to attract and retain workers: They’re hiking pay significantly, offering bonuses and even recruiting people they previously wouldn’t have considered. 

But it’s not working. The industry reports a growing labor shortage — 63,000 open positions this year, a number expected to more than double in coming years — that could have wide-ranging impacts on the U.S. economy. 

In interviews with more than 60 trainees, recruiters and people who explored trucking but decided not to take the job, most said they feel that higher pay will help but that the industry’s problems are much deeper than that. 

Trucking remains one of the most dangerous professions in the country. There were more than 1,000 fatalities among motor vehicle operators in 2016, according to the Labor Department, meaning being a commercial driver is nearly eight times as deadly as being a law enforcement officer. 

...Trucking jobs require people to leave their families for weeks at a time and live in a small “cabin” with a hard bed. Divorces are common, veteran drivers say, and their children forget them. A life on the road is often costly and unhealthy. Drivers sit for hours a day in diesel trucks and pull into truck stops that typically serve greasy hot dogs and chili. 

Weight gain and heart disease are common, says Gordon Zellers, an Ohio physician who spends half his time examining truckers and administering drug tests, which increasing numbers of CDL applicants fail. 

As it has trouble recruiting new workers, the industry also is struggling to hold on to drivers. Turnover in the trucking industry has skyrocketed to 94 percent, according to the American Trucking Associations, meaning most drivers at the major trucking companies don’t spend more than a year in their jobs. That reflects a combination of poaching and quitting....

That's some pretty intense turnover. I haven't thought about trucking yet....

The life of a trucker, long story short, seems miserable, especially the part about being away from your family for a month at a time. I was trying to figure out how much I would have to be paid to take a job as a trucker, i.e. the amount of money I would have to make before I would start to get tempted. It was many multiples of the $42k that the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the median trucker makes. (I recognize that number is not the likely wage that a long-haul trucker makes.) 

Raise wages? Are you nuts?!?!

Driving into work the other day, I was amused to listen to a story on Marketplace (the public radio business show) where the reporter was marveling at the 3% unemployment rate in Iowa.* I was also amused to hear the "s-word" about the difficulty in finding workers in The Hawkeye State:

...Swenson said a worker shortage is part of the problem. It’s hard to get people to move to Iowa or keep skilled workers from heading to states with higher wage opportunities. The shortage of workers makes attracting new businesses tougher, too. 

Swenson said one would expect employers to start bidding up pay to compete more aggressively. He said average earnings are about 80 percent of the national average, and many rural Iowans work more than one job. 

But Wells Fargo economist Michael Swanson said there are risks to recruiting with higher pay.  

“If I start raising rates to attract new employees, I have to raise wages for everyone in my organization,” he said.

First, I should say this is one of those things that we who criticize employers for low wages don't often take into account - it's not just the latest worker's pay, it's also everyone else's pay that needs to be calibrated to the new higher amount. That said, I don't think anyone has to worry that managers are losing sleep over how to make their new higher payroll:

Kemin Industries, an agricultural and biotech company based in Des Moines, isn’t raising wages much to deal with its worker shortage. Instead, Amanda Formaro, an HR director, said the company has stepped up recruiting and is looking at ways to help low-skilled workers get training.

Well, it's a good thing they've found a solution. Heaven forfend they'd have to raise rates significantly.

*Truly, that is a remarkably low rate for U3 unemployment. Hard to say what the broader U6 measurement might be.

YP: Reaching an industrial postdoc in analytical chemistry

Last week, I expressed that I hoped that Linda Wang's story in C&EN about analytical chemists in industry did indeed reflect higher demand for analysts, a claim that I feel is not borne out yet with data. YP wrote in with their story; it has been redacted for privacy.

As an undergraduate, I attended [medium-sized state school] and majored in chemistry. There were several options in the chemistry major--you could pick the ACS certified option, general chemistry, or the biochemistry (the options have further diversified since then). Because I loved chemistry but also wanted to do biomedically-based research, I completed both the ACS certified and the biochemistry options--4 extra classes in total. At the time, I did not think very much about it; I was still in that strange undergraduate phase of loving learning for the sake of learning, so I enjoyed taking those extra labs and analytical chemistry lecture courses. 

Fast forward to grad school. Unlike many of your readers, I did not go into organic synthesis. I attended [prominent R1 school] and did a biophysical chemistry-project in [very, very famous professor's] group. This meant that I learned a lot of molecular biology very quickly, but also had to be reasonably adept at other aspects of chemistry... making me a jack of all trades, master of none type of scientist. Exactly the type industry does NOT want. Why did I pick this path? I was fascinated with the science, and Professor [redacted] makes one heck of a sales pitch. Also, I was not sure what I wanted to do after grad school; I thought I could keep my options open for a bit longer, maybe teach at a SLAC. 

For personal reasons, I looked for a job in [small East Coast city] after grad school. I ended up doing a postdoc in a cancer biology group, which was great, because coming out of a chemistry group I knew I needed a better understanding of biological processes as well as technical training. Three years later, the two-body problem reared its ugly head again, and my spouse and I decided that the greater Boston area gave both of us the best chance to have fulfilling non-academic careers, especially given the stresses in the academic world right now. [They] found a job almost immediately, but I spent 4 months in total looking for a job. 

I applied for a research associate position with a small contract research organization, [redacted], on a day when I was feeling desperate for a job. I was overqualified for the position, but the HR rep realized that I fit the qualifications for a recently-opened industrial postdoc position. and here is where the analytical skills come in: the HR rep requested all of my transcripts, because the position required understanding and problem-solving skills in analytical chemistry. Even though I took those courses 10 years ago, the mindset was still there. My biology knowledge will be useful, too, for characterizing biologics. I had a great interview with the company--this included a technical interview so that I could demonstrate problem-solving skills--and I will start the position [very soon]. 

Thanks to YP for their story -- best wishes to them, and to all of us. 

Analytical chemists needed?

Also from this week's C&EN, a thought-provoking article by Linda Wang on analytical chemistry in industry with some interesting quotes: 

“It’s a great time to be an analytical chemist,” says Dan Shine, president of chromatography and mass spectrometry at Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company employs roughly 4,600 scientists and engineers, including analytical chemists. “We typically have hundreds of positions open at any one time,” he says.

Interestingly, Thermo Fisher Scientific lists 27 positions for the search term "chemist." This number includes a number of positions in Bangalore, India.

“Analytical has always been easier than other areas of chemistry to get positions,” says Susan Olesik, Dow Professor of Chemistry at Ohio State University. “Even through the recession, we were able to get our students placed. It took longer, but they still got placed.”

I would obviously like to hear from Ohio State graduates to see if this is/was a true statement. My intuition tells me that it is likely true. Of course, I would also like to know what "placed" means. (i.e. full-time? part-time? what wage? temporary positions?)

I found this to be an interesting part of the article:

Ian Mangion, for instance, started at Merck as a synthetic organic chemist, but he found himself becoming more and more interested in the analytical side of things. “There’s a synergy between making and measuring, and learning the other part of the equation became interesting to me,” he says. “A lot of the training I’ve gotten has been on the job, being mentored by senior people in the department, learning a new skill set, and broadening myself as a pharmaceutical scientist. 

“I’m supporting development projects in much the same way I was doing as a synthetic chemist, only now I’m looking through the other end of the telescope,” he says. “Whereas before I was working on improving the synthesis of a compound, now I’m thinking about ‘How do we understand and control the impurity profile of this compound?’ ” 

Finally, there was this very interesting statement by Professor Olesik:

Some analytical chemists worry whether academia can produce enough new faculty to train the next generation of analytical chemists. Ohio State’s Olesik says that of the more than 50 graduate students she has trained, every single one has gone into industry. “The difference in salaries between academic and industrial analytical chemists is significant,” she says. 

“I think academic analytical chemistry has to be really careful or we won’t have enough graduates to support industry’s needs,” Olesik says. “This dwindling away of the academic analytical enterprise, it’s not a good thing, but it’s real.” She encourages analytical chemists to consider careers in academia as well as industry.

I seem to recall that, during the Wabash comments kerfluffle, there was a suggestion that there is a relative shortage of analytical chemistry Ph.D.s? Before I agree, I would like to see wage data (not likely, I understand.)

This article reminds me of something that I have been thinking for a while -- the ACS Salary Survey (and the once-every-five-years ChemCensus) are still not comprehensive enough and do not have a broad enough reach. We are on the "other" (whatever that means) side of the Great Recession, and we still have a paucity of good data. That's a shame. 

Shortage Watch: AWIS

From a minor kerfluffle on Twitter this morning, an interesting June press release from the Association for Women in Science's executive director (emphasis mine): 

STEM Worker Shortage can be Tied Back to Lack of Family-Friendly Workplace Policies
On June 23, 2014, the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) joined the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Center for American Progress, and the Department of Labor (DOL) for the Working Families Summit in Washington, DC.  The goal of the Summit was to foster a conversation regarding policies that will benefits the working families of today. In order for America to remain competitive in today’s global economy, we need to transition workplace environments into the 21st century through work-life balance and good employer practices. AWIS couldn't agree more with this goal and frankly it’s time for elected officials and employers to recognize the needs of the families of today. 

It’s no secret that the United States is facing a worker shortage in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). There are more opportunities in the STEM fields than ever, but where are the workers? AWIS recently conducted the largest international survey of working researchers to study their approaches to work-life balance, career decisions, and career conflicts. AWIS surveyed more than 4,000 researchers in both academic and corporate settings from 115 countries around the world. We found that due to rigorous schedules and outdated work policies, which often conflict with personal time and family life, both men and women are leaving the STEM fields...

It's always interesting to me how thoroughly entrenched the STEM shortage myth is in elite circles.

[FWIW, I don't really have a problem with organizations advocating for better family-friendly policies - it's just a goofy newshook, that's all.] 

The horrors of redistribution

About a week ago, noted demographer Michael Teitelbaum took to the (online) pages of The Atlantic to speak to "The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage". Here's a great summary by Derek Lowe of the article, also noting that Teitelbaum has a book coming out about it. I'm really looking forward to reading it (an early Father's Day present, Mrs. CJ?). Anyway, here comes Robert Atkinson*, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation with a retort in Washington Monthly. (ht @unstableisotope) I'm pretty sure that Teitelbaum and Atkinson are basically talking past each other, but here's something that I find really amusing as a comment:

Teitelbaum would also have us believe that all is well because more students than ever are interested in STEM. If so, why then do 4 times more high school students take the AP Art History test than the AP Computer Science Test? It’s not because of those high wages in art history jobs. 

If I were to hazard a guess as to why the AP Computer Science test is not often taken, it's because it isn't seen as a key prerequisite to going to college in computer science. (As I recall, and perhaps I am wrong, it's seen as a bit out of date?) Also, I'd think that there's a lot more legacy infrastructure around the AP Art History exam (i.e. a lot more high schools have arts teachers than qualified CS teachers?)

Finally, a rather wonderful blast at the cohort of professors that have been raining on Atkinson's parade for the last three or so years that he's been plumping the STEM shortage:

So what’s behind the man bites dog STEM stories? The short answer is ideology. Most of the advocates of no-shortage, including people like Ron Hira, Hal Salzman, Richard Freeman, and of course Teitelbaum are focused more on an agenda of redistribution, ensuring higher wages for workers, including STEM workers. Arguing against shortages is part of a strategy to oppose high-skill immigration policies so that shortages increase even more and already well paid STEM workers get paid even more. 

Yet policies established to achieve nothing more than an increase in STEM wages by restricting the supply of workers would have two bad effects. First, they would lead to higher prices for products and services that have STEM talent as a significant input. This would be a transfer payment from all consumers, including low income ones, to some workers, many of whom are already very well paid. Restricting the supply STEM workers would also reduce the competitiveness of U.S. establishments that rely on STEM labor, reducing U.S. jobs and economic growth. 

Higher wages for workers! What a travesty. It's a frickin' shame that Zuckerberg has to pay so much for developers and corporate America cannot import enough back office folks. Goshdarnit, we're all ideologues.

I'm not much of a trade unionist (much like Derek Lowe), but articles like Atkinson lay bare his agenda and make me want to start buying Billy Bragg albums.

*He was featured in this video last week, too.  

Sunil Kumar: the US has "more than enough" scientists, inventors and chemists

From this week's C&EN, Marc Reisch interviews Sunil Kumar, a retired CEO of ISP (a specialty chemical firm) with an unconventional comment on the STEM shortage myth (emphasis mine):

India’s economy grows at 6% a year, but its per capita output is stagnant because of population growth. In the U.S., lower population growth and 3% economic growth mean real per capita growth. And although India graduates large numbers of engineers, most, Kumar contends, aren’t well trained. 

“There must be something wrong when a country that graduates 300,000 engineers per year gets no Nobel Prizes, gets few patents, and has only a $1.8 trillion economy,” Kumar says. 

He sees no need for the U.S. to churn out engineers to better compete with India. Although the U.S. can always stand to improve its educational system, Kumar says, the country already “has more than enough brilliant scientists, inventors, and chemists.” 

What the U.S. shouldn’t do, Kumar says, is send talented foreigners trained in U.S. schools back to their home countries because of visa restrictions. “That is like gold slipping through your fingers,” he says.

A refreshing set of ideas, especially from the C-suite. 

11 ways John Lechleiter and friends would approach America's clown shortage

If only people knew how fun it was to drive one of these.
Credit: bluecheddar.net

You may not know this, but apparently America has a clown shortage.* Here is how I imagine corporate CEOs and PR flacks might approach this crisis:

1. Clowns are vital to our national security.
2. There are 14,000,000 unfilled positions for clowns -- these are very mobile, high paying jobs!
3. Who will win the War for Clown Talent?
4. American youth is just not as zany as the youth of past generations of clowns -- it's all those iPads and iPhones.
5. By having insufficient clowns, we are depriving future generations of laughter and joy.
6. Do you know what the median starting salary for clowns is? I have a study that says that it's over $125,000. That, my friends, is a shortage.
7. America is being out-funnied by our international competitors.
8. Our education system just doesn't value clowning in K-12 -- it really needs to do better.
9. Congress needs to subsidize the production of clowns by founding the National Clown Centers of Excellence.
10. We need to make clowning more fun and more hands-on.
11. We should never, ever, ever raise wages for clowns.

Have a great weekend!

A good point by Freddie deBoer: the median, not the star student

Freddie deBoer is a humanities graduate student and a commentator on politics from a left perspective. He's been writing on-and-off on the myth of a STEM shortage and has an interesting point in Medium, looking at Silicon Valley's latest push for MOAR WORKERS (emphasis mine):

I was talking about this issue with a friend of mine, a brilliant PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering. We were walking by the quad during one of the big tech job fairs here at Purdue University, where some of the most powerful and profitable companies in science and technology come to entice Purdue students to apply for jobs. Purdue is a good school generally, but its reputation largely comes from its top-flight engineering and computer science programs. Looking at all of these billion-dollar companies spending time, money, and energy on developing elaborate booths, all to attract applications for employment, it was hard not to believe in the notion of a STEM shortage. 

When I mentioned that point to my friend, he laughed and said, “These companies are all trying to get the same 50 students.” This, more than anything, may be the source of the persistent STEM shortage myth: the inarguable value of being a star in a STEM field. There’s little doubt that people at the top of the food chain in computer science or electrical engineering or biomedical engineering, etc., often enjoy fantastic material and economic gain.  

But this is a banal point: it’s good to be a star. It’s good to be a star engineer in the same way it’s good to be a star musician or a star psychologist or a star writer. What public policy and politics demand is that we pay attention not to stars but to the median person. And the median American is facing a world of stagnant wages, the arbitrary nature of the employment market, and the constant fear of our financial system’s boom and bust cycle. The problem is that by definition, very few people get to be stars. I don’t doubt that the median Purdue STEM graduate is doing well. But Purdue is a top-flight STEM school, and half of our graduates will be below the median, and many who start those majors fail out of them, and the country is filled with schools who graduate STEM students who can’t get jobs. Basing our perception of the employment market on the outcomes of those 50 star students is pure folly.

I think Freddie's friend is probably right -- all those companies aren't trying to get warm bodies, they're trying to get star students. I think we've seen this with (my old nemesis) and Dow CEO Andrew Liveris, who was commenting about paying new chemical engineers $120,000 a year. Let's leave aside the question of whether or not it was accurate; it's likely that Dow has the money to chase the new star graduate and pay them a top salary, whatever the number. I wonder if those CEOs and their minions see what they're paying their new people and say, salaries are going up! We must have a shortage!

This doesn't excuse the behavior of the STEM shortage folks, but I wonder if it explains the nature of the distorted claims that they routinely make. 

STEM Glut Watch: Veterinarians

Thanks to @UnstableIsotope, I see that veterinarians are running into some supply/demand issues with respect to unemployment: 

There are way more veterinarians than there is work for them to do, according to a recent survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association, as the nation's veterinary schools continue to crank out graduates. 

A report from the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates the supply exceeds the demand by the equivalent of 11,250 full-time vets. 

"There is a palpable tension," says Christopher Byers of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. "Right now, as a profession, we have so many veterinarians who are not being utilized to their full capacity. And now it is our job to figure out why that is and to come up with ways to rectify that." 

He says vets don't have high unemployment, but the underemployment is significant. More than half say their practices are not at full capacity owing to a variety of factors, including that the sour economy has led many to forgo pet ownership as well as preventive care. "There are a lot of veterinarians having big red flags go up in their head, questioning why we have more opportunities for veterinary training when the demand isn't there," Byers says.

In case you didn't know (I didn't), there are around 61,000 employed veterinarians in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Having a 17% surplus seems a bit high, but I'm no labor economist.

I think it is worth noting that veterinarians may not be the best source of unbiased information (i.e. they have their interests, too -- low unemployment, full offices, higher wages.) That said, I was rather amused to read the justifications from a veterinary school administrator:

So now, the schools are in a bind — tuition money on one side, market realities on the other. Dan Givens, an interim dean at Auburn University, says veterinary medicine is a calling that attracts people no matter the economics. And, he says, given public health threats, too much talent in the workforce has upsides. 

"If we had a new foreign animal disease come into the United States, the excess capacity would be a great blessing for us, because we would be prepared for this huge surge in need," Givens says.

I'm so pleased that our (expensive, unnecessary (?), ineffective) insurance policy for a new foreign animal disease is the wasted human capital represented by underemployed veterinarians. Yay.  

Cass Sunstein is wrong on "the STEM crisis"

Thanks to my Thursday morning Wonkbook e-mail, I was subjected to a classic "STEM crisis" column by Harvard law professor and former White House staffer Cass Sunstein:

In recent years, a lot of people have been concerned about the relatively low numbers of science majors among American college students. The percentage of science and engineering graduates in the United States has been far below that in China and Japan. On various math and science tests, the performance of U.S. students has fallen below that of students in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, England, Finland, Israel, Australia and Russia. 

This is a real problem, because science majors can contribute to economic growth and because many of them end up with especially good jobs after graduation. In the employment market, students with degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) can be at a comparative advantage. The relatively low number of American graduates in these fields has created what some people call “the STEM crisis.” 

...In 2012, Obama lamented: “Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that — openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.” But while computer-science enrollments are increasing, the number of science majors remains disappointingly low. 

Why is this? Are young Americans uninterested in science?

I won't belabor this issue, because you, dear reader, are very, very tired of me repeating myself. Let's just remember that when presidents and law professors talk about "science and technology", especially with reference to jobs, they're talking about computers and IT. It's even in his own column ("But while computer-science enrollments are increasing, the number of science majors remains disappointingly low") and yet, the explanation (rising wages, growing job opportunities in computer-related fields) still escapes him.

[The rest of the column might be worth your time, in that it's an exploration of the recent study that showed that when students who thought they would do well in science classes don't, they leave. You don't say! He goes on to blame state and local governments, which is strange, in my opinion.] 

A small skirmish in the "STEM jobs" PR battle

One of the interesting results of the big Economic Policy Institute study that suggested that there is not a shortage of high-skill workers is the pushback from the trade associations, PR flacks, etc. that have been hired to help with the comprehensive immigration reform bill. Here's a good example in the Seattle Times, courtesy of the great @fiainros:

Need for STEM graduates is indisputable 

The Economic Policy Institute study presents a picture of America’s STEM-worker shortage and STEM-education crisis that is vastly different from authoritative research on this topic [“Study: Shortage of U.S. STEM graduates a myth,” Business, April 25]. 

Most researchers agree there are not enough qualified workers to fill currently vacant American jobs or the jobs the nation is expected to add in the future that require experts like computer scientists, mathematicians and engineers. 

One flaw is that the study uses the category of “information science,” which includes librarians, social scientists and other professions that artificially inflate the pool of STEM workers. 

The reality is the U.S. economy will produce about 120,000 computer-science jobs annually through 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, we only produce 40,000 bachelor’s degrees in that field each year. 

After graduation, 43 percent of STEM graduates do not work in STEM fields. Furthermore, 46 percent of workers with a bachelor’s degree in STEM will leave their field after two years in the workforce, according to a Georgetown University study. 

The need for more graduates in STEM fields is indisputable. Any look at the facts shows our nation needs to invest in and improve STEM education if we are to compete globally, now and in the future. 

Beneva Schulte, executive director, inSPIRE STEM USA, Chevy Chase, Md.

Obviously, this letter is more than a little bit laughable. It sounds to me that most STEM grads do not want to work in STEM jobs, which means that we need more! Chad Jones has a nice post making fun of this letter, and I agree with most of what he says. You should go and read it.

[I would like to know the facts behind those computer science stats. They seem fishy to me somehow, but hey -- maybe I'm wrong. I agree there is an intense demand for computer jobs; this is what is really driving the high-skill part of the comprehensive immigration reform debate.]

I do want to point out Ms. Schulte's qualifications to be the head of "inSPIRE STEM USA", which is that she has a deep background in politics. Naturally, her words on this issue are backed up by evidence and are to be trusted. Indisputably! 

Shortage Watch: Permatern edition

In the midst of an interesting article in The Week decrying twenty-somethings spending their time as unpaid interns, an interesting comment:

But Aaron Smith of youth-advocacy organization Young Invincibles sees permaterns to be more a result of the economic rug's being pulled out from under this generation. "The economy needs to add a really high number of youth jobs over the next 10 years to get us back to where we were before," he says. 

Like others, Smith sees a mismatch between the jobs that are available and what young people are seeking and trained for. "There is a huge demand for [people in science, engineering, and math], and we don't produce enough of those graduates to fill that need," Smith says. "Students need to be more cognizant of the labor market."

I don't think that's really true, but it's probably a reflection of the difficulty in the overall youth job market that the STEM job market looks relatively good.

I think it would behoove the scientific community to kill this media meme that STEM jobs are in high demand. Yes, it is true that there are pockets of high demand in some fields, but there are pockets of very low demand in others. Aggregating science, technology, engineering and mathematics into a single field was a dumb policy/PR move, and it is doing no favors for employment of aspiring scientists and practicing scientists.

This Is What Shortage Looks Like, petroleum engineering edition

From the pages of Bloomberg, a reminder of what actual shortage in an employment field looks like:

Wages in energy and mining have grown at nine times the rate of all industries since 2008, and starting salaries for petroleum engineering graduates are about $98,000, up 9.7 percent since 2008, according to PayScale Inc. 

The need is acute at the newest chemical, refining and export complexes that serve a shale-drilling renaissance that has given U.S. companies the competitive advantage of low gas prices. As shale projects and their infrastructure multiplies, the ensuing war for talent will double labor costs by 2020 for skilled workers such as geoscientists and engineers, according to NES Global and Piper Morgan Associates.

I'm a little bit skeptical about these numbers, in that NES Global and Piper Morgan are both petroleum industry recruiting/staffing agencies. That said, the article is chockfull of encouraging statements like this one:

“If you can spell ‘shale,’ you can get a job,” Ryan Lance, chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, said March 5 at the IHS CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

And this one:

Skilled and experienced workers such as engineers are earning an average of between $183,000 and $285,000 a year depending on the position and experience level and about $120,000 a year after graduating from college, NES data show. Salaries in some fields may double in the next seven years, Groeneveld said.

And here's how you know there's a real shortage in petroleum technology workers -- companies are broadening, not narrowing, their willingness to accept workers from other fields :

Demand for skilled workers is so great that companies such as ConocoPhillips have begun to poach graduates from other fields such as electrical, mechanical and civil engineering and develop programs to train them in petroleum engineering, said Sheila Feldman, vice president of human resources for the Houston-based energy company. 

...Colleges in Texas and Oklahoma are leading the nation in efforts to tailor programs to industry needs, said Dan Clark, managing partner of Energy Headhunter, a recruiting firm in Houston. The fluidity of movement in the U.S., as well as an increasing willingness in the industry to train non-technical graduates for some jobs such as in North Dakota, will help meet the challenge, he said.

There is little doubt in my mind that there is indeed a shortage of classically-trained petroleum engineers in the United States. Strong wage increases*, actual (not projected) spending on petrochemical complexes and the willingness of employers to hire graduates from other fields are all indications that there is an actual shortage of them. Remind yourself of that the next time you hear a politician tell you about scientist shortage and ask yourself -- is the wage increasing? In the immortal words of economist Lindsey Lowell, "have the wage lead the way."

*9.7%! That beats the holy crap out of CPI inflation for that time period (3-4%). For that same time period, the median ACS member lost 7% in salary, I think. 

...while the truth puts on its shoes.

From an astute reader comes a very disappointing passage in a Bloomberg View column by A. Gary Shilling on coming changes in the ways that universities fund themselves:

Most thought that a bachelor’s degree was the ticket to a well-paid job, and that the heavy student loans were worth it and manageable. And many thought that majors such as social science, education, criminal justice or humanities would still get them jobs. They didn’t realize that the jobs that could be obtained with such credentials were the nice-to-have but nonessential positions of the boom years that would disappear when times got tough and businesses slashed costs. 

Some of those recent graduates probably didn’t want to do, or were intellectually incapable of doing, the hard work required to major in science and engineering. After all, afternoon labs cut into athletic pursuits and social time. Yet that’s where the jobs are now. Many U.S.-based companies are moving their research-and-development operations offshore because of the lack of scientists and engineers in this country, either native or foreign-born. (emphasis CJ's)

Apparently, Mr. Shilling is an economist of some moderate repute, which makes that sentence even more galling.

It's a remarkable shame that the "scientist shortage" meme has spread so thoroughly through our elites. If only a scientific society, say, the largest one in the world, had the bully pulpit to attempt to refute such fairy tales. Alas.