The Unhappiest Place on Earth

The New York Times has quite a remarkable story about H1b visa holders literally replacing IT workers at Disney: 

...Disney “made the difficult decision to eliminate certain positions, including yours” as a result of “the transition of your work to a managed service provider,” said a contract presented to employees on the day the layoffs were announced. It offered a “stay bonus” of 10 percent of severance pay if they remained for 90 days. But the bonus was contingent on “the continued satisfactory performance of your job duties.” For many, that involved training a replacement. Young immigrants from India took the seats at their computer stations. 

“The first 30 days was all capturing what I did,” said the American in his 40s, who worked 10 years in his Disney job. “The next 30 days they worked side by side with me, and the last 30 days they took over my job completely.” To receive his severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my job correctly.” 

In late November, this former employee received his annual performance review, which he provided to The New York Times. His supervisor, who was not aware the man was scheduled for layoff, wrote that because of his superior skills and “outstanding” work, he had saved the company thousands of dollars. The supervisor added that he was looking forward to another highly productive year of having the employee on the team. 

The employee got a raise. His severance pay had to be recalculated to include it. 

The former Disney employee who is 57 worked in project management and software development. His résumé lists a top-level skill certification and command of seven operating systems, 15 program languages and more than two dozen other applications and media. 

“I was forced into early retirement,” he said. The timing was “horrible,” he said, because his wife recently had a medical emergency with expensive bills. Shut out of Disney, he is looking for a new job elsewhere. 

Former employees said many immigrants who arrived were younger technicians with limited data skills who did not speak English fluently and had to be instructed in the basics of the work....

I gotta say, I have been skeptical of stories like this. Not anymore, I guess.

What is Global Pharma Tek's business model?

Saw this ad through an Indeed search. What is this about? Global Pharma Tek has a website listing lots of QA/QC-type/GMP positions; something tells me that this is a temp/recruiting service that hires international folks only?

I'm confused.

(Hey, check out their partners - including the "Havard Clinical Research Institute." Something is very fishy here.) 

That unpaid postdoc in La Jolla? Yeah, it was meant for a volunteer.

Remember that volunteer postdoc? It's a Veterans Administration/UCSD position, and it was intended for an Egyptian postdoctoral fellow who was willing to work for free. From the San Diego NPR station KPBS, written by David Wagner: 

So I had to do some digging to find out which one posted this, and I found out that the listing was posted by a researcher named Laura Crotty Alexander. She's a physician at the VA San Diego Healthcare System who doubles as a UCSD faculty member. I couldn't reach her for comment. 

If Alexander's listing looked like a terrible opportunity, that's by design, according to VA chief of staff Robert Smith. 

"Frankly, what she was trying to do was make it look unappealing," Smith said. "Because she was trying to create an advertisement that nobody would apply to." 

You see, the VA lab already had someone in mind for the position: a postdoc from Egypt who actually volunteered to work for free. But to take on a non-citizen, even as a volunteer, Alexander felt she had to advertise the job to citizens first. So she posted an off-putting ad to Craigslist and hoped no one would apply. 

Smith said, "This whole convoluted series of things gave what I think is a very misleading appearance of what she wanted, and what the VA — and for that matter, almost anybody — does." 

When online outrage turned into a roar, the VA's human resources department told Alexander to take down the listing. However, the ad did describe a position the VA intended to fill.

I would love to know what Dr. Alexander was thinking. I assume that this is some sort of cultural/scientific exchange, but surely there are immigration visas to satisfy these sorts of requirements. Why does the article say that she "felt" she had to advertise the position to citizens? How strange.

UPDATE, 10/28/13: I have been remiss in noting that on Twitter on Friday, the relevant reporter (David Wagner) and Twitter user @Lewis_Lab engaged in a spirited conversation where Lewis_Lab said that he understood that the person from Egypt was a visiting professor who would be paid out of their position in Egypt. (I'll link to the relevant tweet tonight.) Assuming this is true (and that makes a lot more sense), there is obviously some sort of disconnect/misunderstanding between what she said to Lewis_Lab and what her superior, Dr. Smith, said to the reporter.

[You know, one of the things that those who oppose U.S. H1b policy say is that the advertisements for those positions are written to not be answered, but to fulfill the requirements of the law. In other words, that people intend to hire inexpensively paid non-domestic workers and actively do not want to hire currently authorized U.S. employees. For the most part, I'm pretty skeptical that it is all that common or purposeful.* But this is pretty stout, though indirect**, ammunition for that position, considering that her intentions are actually explained by her superior.]

*Yes, yes, there's the infamous YouTube video of an immigration attorney explaining the process; such mustache-twirling villains are relatively rare, I hope. 

** I sense this is not a H1b-relevant position, but maybe I'm wrong. 

Has the US/world #chemjobs tipping point come? When will it?

An astute reader at a major research university has alerted me to a very interesting job opportunity; it's a partnership between a major US multinational firm and a smaller company located in India. They desire a M.S./Ph.D. in chemistry; the chemist would work for a year for the multinational firm in the United States; following that, they would go to work for the smaller company. Interestingly, the opportunity states that the candidate must be authorized to work in India (thus, presumably, shutting out anyone who is not an Indian citizen -- perhaps I am incorrect.)

I think this is very interesting -- I have heard of these sorts of opportunities, but I've never actually seen one "in the flesh", so to speak. I don't think it's particularly scandalous, for what it's worth. Seems to me that there's a perfectly legitimate reason for such a job to exist.

But it raises a very interesting question about the nature of the chemical enterprise in the United States, both industrial and academic. For generations now, graduate students have come to the United States (especially from developing countries) and gotten their technical training here and gone to work here. The vast majority have stayed in the US (or other Western nations), relatively few have gone back home, contra Mark Zuckerberg and half of Congress. The pay is better here, benefits might be better, etc., etc.

But over the past few years, as job opportunities in the US have become scarcer and jobs 'back home' have become more plentiful, I imagine the 'settlers'/'returners' ratio has begun to shift towards 'returners'. The job opportunity above is an indication of this changing ratio, but as I see it, most graduate students and postdocs from other countries still manage to find work in the US.

I have 3 questions for readers:

• For chemistry, what do you think the 'settlers'/'returners' ratio is? I suspect that it is currently 5:1, but I think it is definitely higher lower than 10 to 1. 
• Do you think the ratio is climbing or falling? When will it peak? 
• What would be the best way to measure this ratio for chemistry?

Thanks to the astute reader. 

The high-skilled immigration debate hits C&EN

This week, Andrea Widener and Linda Wang of C&EN tackle the high-skilled immigration debate. The 4 articles are definitely worth reading, if only to get a flavor of the statistics and scope of the debate. They are as follows:

• Ms. Widener's look at the debate amongst economists about STEM immigration. 
• Linda Wang's story on the variety of folks affected by the immigration debate, including a diary of one chemist from Pakistan. 
• A brief overview of the different kinds of visas, by Linda Wang. 

The statistics: A short overview from the Widener story:

• Just 2.2% of approved H1B visas for fiscal year 2011 were for "mathematical and physical sciences", which includes chemists. 
• The "pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing" sector accounted for 0.7% of H1B applications; by contrast, the computer systems design sector accounted for 39.5%. 
• Doctoral degree holders (from abroad) accounted for just 11% of total applications, with 83% holding just a bachelor's or a master's degree. 
• 64.8% of H1B visas holders were from either India (58%) or China (8.8%). 

I was surprised to see the story lead off with a reminder of the relatively high unemployment rate of ACS members for 2012 at 4.2%. 

Wouldn't it be nice to get some facts on STEM exits?: From a former university president, a comment about students who leave:

What is truly important is to have an immigration system that allows the best and brightest to come to the U.S. and stay here, says James Duderstadt, former University of Michigan president who has been on several National Academy of Sciences panels that recommend immigration reform. Most of the industrialized world has already made it easier for highly skilled scientists to immigrate, he says. The U.S. has not. 

“We end up paying a lot for foreign students’ graduate education and then we show them the door,” Duderstadt says. “These people with advanced skills are worth their weight in gold.”

I would really like to know if/how this happens. I know that qualified chemists end up going back to their countries of origin due to terrible immigration circumstances (I have seen it myself!), but it seems to be oft-rumored and relatively few sourced statistics exist. 

[If these people are worth their weight in gold, why are we paying so poorly for postdocs?] 

Bravely done, Air Products: I was surprised to see an actual chemical company decide to comment on the issue on the record, and here we are:

It is those highly skilled workers that the chemical company Air Products & Chemicals seeks out. “Our objective is to find the right talent and to be blind to the circumstances around them,” says Martha Collins, director of the Global Technology Centers at the company. And if the perfect employee happens to need a visa, the company will work with them to make that happen.

I see that Air Products did indeed hire a couple of senior research chemists at 95k via the H1B system back in 2009 (search here for "Air Products" and 2009, 2nd page of results); seems to me that it's a fair wage for Allentown, PA, but what do I know? 

An unexpected comment: Lamar Smith is better known for some of his more controversial statements about science and science funding. I hadn't heard about this one: 

And some degree fields don’t need more workers. The life sciences are one of the sectors where wages are falling in most analyses. Last year it was specifically excluded from a bill expanding H-1B visas offered by the Judiciary Committee chair at the time, Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas). The bill passed the House but was not taken up in the Senate and died at the end of 2012.

I would not have expected that. Can't say I disagree, really. 

Finally, the human toll: From Linda Wang's article, a sad comment about international Ph.D. students wanting to go home for a visit: 

And going home to visit? Forget it. Pius O. Adelani, a postdoc in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, who is from Nigeria, has not returned home since he arrived in the U.S. in 2007 to start a Ph.D. program. He knew there was a chance he could be denied a reentry visa, which would have meant that he’d have to terminate his Ph.D. training. “I didn’t want to take that risk,” he says. Now that he’s completed his Ph.D., he is hoping to visit his father and siblings in Nigeria soon.

There are a lot of sides to the STEM immigration debate; the corporations, the universities and the individual US worker all have their conflicting priorities. But it seems rather unkind of our system to seemingly deny students and postdoctoral fellows the ability to go home and see their family. I would really hope that there would be legislation or regulatory change to address this problem (why haven't the universities taken this up?). Surely, we can all agree that this, of all things, needs to change. 

All in all, a good effort from C&EN. Worth a read. 

Annoying high-tech unemployment tropes

There's a New York Times article from a few days ago about the recent immigration/technology kerfluffle that doesn't really have much new to offer the debate. There's the heart-rending stories of out-of-work older engineers and the constant protestations from the think tank community that yes, there isn't much direct evidence that high-skilled immigration hurts American employees -- if you've been reading about this issue, it's pretty standard (and in the case of the think tank papers, irritating).  I found a few things to be worth comment, though. From the article:

It is true that for certain categories of engineers, wages are not going up as sharply as one would expect if good engineering talent were indeed hard to find. But it is also true that engineers with certain specialties, like software development, are hard to find. 

Intel, for instance, which has more than 50,000 employees in the United States, said it has 1,000 openings. Motorola Solutions said it was scrambling for software engineers. And unemployment among technology professionals is generally about half the national average, buttressing the industry’s claims.

First, is anyone else annoyed by companies complaining about their numbers of openings? I don't really think it's indicative of very much; perhaps I am incorrect. I do believe in advertised openings, even though those can be tricky too -- there doesn't seem to be much incentive to spend money to advertise some position that doesn't really exist.* But I'm really crazed by this comparison of the high-tech community's unemployment rate versus the national average. That's a meaningless comparison by the New York Times -- are we really going to compare a group of people with highly in-demand skills and 85+% bachelor's degrees against a society where 30% have a bachelor's degree? (If you compare against all bachelor degree holders (linked helpfully by the Times themselves, 4th chart down), the gap between non-STEM B.S. holders (4.4%) and STEM/computer B.S. holders (3%) narrows to something more realistic.)

Finally, there's this gem from Intel in the article:

Already, the fight over high-skilled immigration has led to arguments and counterarguments on the Senate floor, with one side warning that jobs will go to workers from overseas and the other rallying for Americans first. 

But Ardine Williams, the vice president for human resources at Intel, said that hiring Americans is not always practical. Asked about hiring unemployed engineers in this country, she said, “I encounter those folks as well. They are skilled and have expertise outside of an area where we need engineers. In some cases they haven’t kept their skills current.”

Well, I find that supporting tax cuts for large profitable multi-national consumer electronics firms is getting less and less practical, myself. Perhaps we could come to some agreement, yes?

*I'm sure there are reasons, and that you'll tell me about them. 

By the way, is dentistry a STEM field?

How does the Senate immigration bill (that has passed the Senate) define "STEM"? (oh, how I hate that term.) Here's the section that I found (page 661):

INCREASE IN ALLOCATION FOR STEM NON-IMMIGRANTS.—Section 214(g)(5)(C) (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(5)(C)) is amended to read as follows:  

‘‘(C) has earned a master’s or higher, in a field  of science, technology, engineering, or math included in the Department of Education’s Classification of Instructional Programs taxonomy within the summary groups of computer and information sciences and support services, engineering, mathematics and statistics, and physical sciences, from a United States institution of higher education (as defined in section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001(a)) until the number of aliens who are exempted from such numerical limitation during 4 such year exceed 25,000.’’

In reading the Issa*/House Judiciary committee (?) version of the STEM green card bill, a slightly different version in a definitions section (page 6):

The term ‘field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics’ means a field included in the Department of Education’s Classification of Instructional Programs taxonomy within the summary groups of computer and information sciences and support services, engineering, biological and biomedical sciences, mathematics and statistics, physical sciences, and the series geography and cartography (series 45.07), advanced/graduate dentistry and oral sciences (series 51.05) and nursing (series 51.16).

Is dentistry a STEM field? Nursing? Yes, they require a deep understanding of Science and Mathematics, but it is not what I consider Science, or Technology, or Engineering or Mathematics. Health care is its own field, with its own terminology (and its own immigration issues, I might note). It's all very exasperating to me.

This is why this term is so appallingly stupid -- for some reason, it means A Good Thing, and so all sorts of things get shoehorned into STEM.

[Hey, what happened to the biomedical sciences section in the Senate version? I gotta understand this stuff better.]

*Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), member of the House Judiciary Committee

There's probably going to be a STEM green card bill signed by the president

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, a little factlet that's being lost in the news about the Senate passing the immigration reform bill:

Foreigners who earned Ph.D.'s at American universities would be eligible for green cards, while foreign students who completed master's degrees or Ph.D.'s in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (the STEM fields) could petition for a card. 

"The real game changer in the bill for universities is in the green-card section, where advanced-degree graduates for STEM fields have green cards stapled to their diplomas," said Craig Lindwarm, assistant director for international issues and Congressional and governmental affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

Immigration reform is headed over to the House of Representatives. Very few people believe that the House has the inclination (or the organization, for that matter) to pass the Senate bill. It is my vague understanding that they're much more likely to do this in piecemeal fashion. And what do I see coming out of the House Judiciary Committee? (via The Hill):

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday passed a tech-backed immigration bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on a 20 to 14 vote. 

The bill would increase the number of H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, as well as make 55,000 green cards available to foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced technical degrees. But to offset making those green cards available, the bill would eliminate the diversity visa and siblings of U.S. citizens.

The House bill (or at least, the Issa version) is here; the Senate bill that has been voted on is here. I have no idea whether or not the House will consider low-skill immigration, but I think it's quite likely that some form of high-skill immigration (i.e. expansion of H-1B visas, green cards for international students who graduate with Ph.D.s and M.S.s) will make it through the House and the Senate and be signed by the President. I should note that I am neither an immigration legislation specialist, or a Congressional expert.

Gee, I hope this works out for everyone involved. Certainly, the tech companies will get what they want (and, seeing as how they're the source of much future economic growth, perhaps they should be at the front of the line?) But at what cost?

Best wishes to all of us. 

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! 

EPI's report on STEM immigration numbers

The Economic Policy Institute is a liberal policy think tank; they've decided in recent years to take on H-1B visa and STEM immigration policy. They've come out with a fairly quantitative look at the STEM immigration debate recently and they've concluded three things (emphases by the authors):

Our examination of the IT labor market, guestworker flows, and the STEM education pipeline finds consistent and clear trends suggesting that the United States has more than a sufficient supply of workers available to work in STEM occupations:

• The flow of U.S. students (citizens and permanent residents) into STEM fields has been strong over the past decade, and the number of U.S. graduates with STEM majors appears to be responsive to changes in employment levels and wages.
• For every two students that U.S. colleges graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job.
• In computer and information science and in engineering, U.S. colleges graduate 50 percent more students than are hired into those fields each year; of the computer science graduates not entering the IT workforce, 32 percent say it is because IT jobs are unavailable, and 53 percent say they found better job opportunities outside of IT occupations. These responses suggest that the supply of graduates is substantially larger than the demand for them in industry.

As you can probably tell, not much time to blog recently, but I wanted to point this out. 

You should probably listen to the audio part of the presentation; it's a little dry, but it really hammers home the point that they're trying to make: that the scientific labor market acts like a market, and the reason that more people (especially domestic students) don't go into STEM fields (ugh, that term) is that the jobs and wages aren't there... and when they are, they do. 

Also, I want to point out the graduate student's comment at the end of the audio presentation (around 19 minutes) where he notes that if a STEM degree holder has a non-STEM job (which a lot of them don't), it represents a form of STEM underemployment -- and that doesn't get taken up in the STEM degree unemployment statistics. 

STEM green card gets into the Senate "Gang of Eight"'s immigration bill summary?

Yesterday, the "Gang of Eight" group of senators released the comprehensive immigration reform bill summary (not the bill itself, but a plain English summary of the bill). Here's an interesting set of tidbits from page 7 of the summary itself (emphases mine):

On the employment green card categories, the bill exempts the following categories from the annual numerical limits on employment-based immigrants: derivative beneficiaries of employment-based immigrants; aliens of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics; outstanding professors and researchers; multinational executives andmanagers; doctoral degree holders in STEM field; and physicians who have completed the foreign residency requirements or have received a waiver. 

The bill then allocates 40 percent of the worldwide level of employment-based visas to : 1) members of the professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent whose services are sought in the sciences, arts, professions, or business by an employer in the United States(including certain aliens with foreign medical degrees) and 2) aliens who have earned a master’s degree or higher in a field of science, technology, engineering or mathematics from an accredited U.S. institution of higher education and have an offer of employment in a related field and the qualifying degree was earned in the five years immediately before the petition was filed.

I am not an immigration lawyer, but I think this means that:

• US based employers can hire and sponsor for green cards as many Ph.D. scientists (from any country) as they desire, without concern about a quota. 
• Sounds like master's-level and above STEM degree holders get higher priority for employment-based visas. 

Again, I'm not an immigration lawyer, so I could be completely incorrect. Here's the actual bill (in legislative language), as it stands right now. 

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, and who the winners and losers are.

[I'd also like to know how different this is from the status quo? If you listen to the tech companies, DHS is throwing students out on their ears right after they get their diplomas. I don't really think that's true, but that's about all I can gather from the situation.]

[Here's another problem: there is no objective source of expertise on STEM immigration. It's pretty much major corporations and their think tanks against the Ron Hiras of the world. Everyone knowledgeable has an opinion -- and even the non-knowledgeable people (ahem, me) have opinions too. If anyone knows of one, I'm all ears.]

A letter to the editor that could have written by me

From this week's C&EN:

As an American Chemical Society member for about 30 years, I have been mystified by the continual assertion that the U.S. faces a general shortage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals. What objective data, such as from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, actually support this assertion? 

Nevertheless, there seems to be limited official response from ACS regarding the present employment situation and how much worse it may become in the near future. For instance, on Feb. 7, the New York Times published “America’s Genius Glut,” a story by Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute. The article indicates that the U.S. has about 9 million people with STEM degrees, but only about 3 million have a job in a STEM field. To better illustrate the real truth about the jobs situation, perhaps C&EN needs to show photographs of newly minted scientists with signs reading, “Unemployed STEM professional—will work for food.” Imagine how much worse things are likely to get for American workers if President Barack Obama gets his stated wish and every foreign STEM graduate gets a green card (Wall Street Journal, Review & Outlook section, Jan. 30). 

If ACS really exists to serve its membership—rather than large institutions such as major universities and multinational companies that principally want a bottomless pit of cheap labor—it is time to consult with other scientific societies and learn their views on the current employment outlook. If these organizations also report poor prospects for their members, then it is time to present a common front to the White House and Congress, clearly stating that there is no general shortage of STEM professionals. 

This really should have been done long ago. Dismal job prospects for physical scientists are not new. On April 14, 1993, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Black Hole Opens in Scientist Job Rolls” by G. Pascal Zachary. At roughly the same time, the New York Times published a story by Malcolm W. Browne entitled “Amid ‘Shortage,’ Young Physicists See Few Jobs.” 

The truth needs to be spoken to our masters in Washington, D.C., quickly, before they sell the rank and file of this society down the river so as to further benefit ultra-high-net-worth types in places like Silicon Valley. 

Wm. Charles L. JamisonWarrenton, Va.

I do not believe there is a broad shortage of scientists and engineers -- there are specific areas, certainly, that have very high demand. But our digital masters will not be put off, so we're going to see expansion in the H-1b system and the STEM green card bill will go through. Yay.

Surprise! STEM immigration skepticism in the New York Times

You've probably heard that there's going to be a STEM section in the comprehensive immigration reform bill that's being debated in Congress. It appears to do 2 things: significantly raise the cap on H-1B visas and to offer a green card to every advanced-degree STEM graduate of certain qualified US universities. I am rather surprised at the level of skepticism I'm seeing in the media on the STEM portions of the comprehensive immigration reform bill, including today's contribution in the New York Times from Ross Eisenbrey, the vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. I'm going to excerpt the most probative parts of his argument:

Nor are we turning away foreign students, or forcing them to leave once they’ve graduated. According to the Congressional Research Service, the number of full-time foreign graduate students in science, engineering and health fields has grown by more than 50 percent, from 91,150 in 1990 to 148,900 in 2009. And over the 2000s, the United States granted permanent residence to almost 300,000 high-tech workers, in addition to granting temporary work permits (for up to six years) to hundreds of thousands more. 

...But almost 90 percent of the Chinese students who earn science and technology doctorates in America stay here; the number is only slightly lower for Indians. If they’re talented enough to get a job here, they’re already almost guaranteed a visa. 

...If anything, we have too many high-tech workers: more than nine million people have degrees in a science, technology, engineering or math field, but only about three million have a job in one. That’s largely because pay levels don’t reward their skills... 

..And while unemployment for high-tech workers may seem low — currently 3.7 percent — that’s more than twice as high as it was before the recession...

His conclusion?

Bringing over more — there are already 500,000 workers on H-1B visas — would obviously darken job prospects for America’s struggling young scientists and engineers. But it would also hurt our efforts to produce more: if the message to American students is, “Don’t bother working hard for a high-tech degree, because we can import someone to do the job for less,” we could do significant long-term damage to the high-tech educational system we value so dearly. 

There is no question that the immigration system needs major reform. But let’s not break anything else in the process.

I would really like to know if Mr. Eisenbrey's facts are accurate. Specifically, I'd like to see the data about retention of Chinese and Indian STEM graduates from the US. Rather than talk to you about my opinions of the current bills before Congress (short version: I'm skeptical), I would like to talk about (potential) winners and losers.

Who are the winners? It would seem to me that international STEM migrants under these programs would be the biggest winners of all. Even under the lower wages of the H1B system, their wages would likely be higher here than at their home.

Corporations would certainly be winners, because they would have access to their desired supply of labor at a relatively low price.

Universities would likely be winners, in that the STEM green card program would increase the quality and quantity of their potential labor pool.

Society at large might be a winner, in that, broadly speaking, the country gets the economic benefit of profitable corporations and tax receipts from the workers.

Who are the losers? It's clear to me that the potential benefit to the existing scientific and technical labor force is low. George Borjas is a Harvard economics professor who is prominent for being an immigration skeptic; he has found a negative effect on the wages of the college-educated from high-skill immigration. Even if you ignore his numbers (and a lot of policy types do), the gains to college-educated workers from immigration are not particularly stunning at 1% or so.

Finally, here are two quotes from the STEM immigration bill discussion that I find bothersome:

• Senator Marco Rubio: "I do not fear that our country will be overrun with Ph.Ds.”
• Political commentator Marc Ambinder*, emphasis mine: "But at the same time, the benefits to the U.S. economy of an influx of skilled foreign workers is undeniable. If there's a glut, then maybe that's a forgivable side effect."

I would like to get some acknowledgement from people like this that existing workers might indeed suffer a small (or perhaps large!) real loss in wages from this new STEM immigration policy. 

If you're asking me to take one for the team (and I might be willing to), I think you should say so.

*I am a huge fan of Ambinder's national security reporting -- I highly recommend it. 

4 remarkable assertions in the ACS Presidential Commission Report

I could talk about the 2012 ACS Presidential Commission Report on Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences a lot, but instead, I think I'll just quote a few statements of fact that were made:

On #chemjobs:

"Given what seems to be a permanently restructured employment market for PhDs, the Commission perceives a risk that the number of career opportunities in the chemical science professions may be insufficient to accommodate those qualified for and desiring entry." 

"In the last decade, 300,000 jobs have been lost in the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. This total is larger than the entire US pharmaceutical employment base. Large US research facilities have been closed and sizable systematic reductions in domestic research capabilities have been implemented or announced, apparently driven in significant part by consolidation in the industry. Some of the reduced functions have been outsourced to other technologically strong nations."

On too many chemists:

"A large undergraduate teaching need is not a sufficient justification for a large graduate program."

"In discussing the employment scene earlier in this chapter, the Commission was frank in its assessment that the current rate of PhD production is too large. While some portion of the excess reflects the current stage of the business cycle, there is evidence, in the growth of postdoctoral employment and in stagnant salaries over a long term, that the nation is producing a systematic excess of PhDs."

On teaching undergraduates:

"While graduate students are certainly exposed to teaching through teaching assistantships, their experiences generally are not drawn from carefully crafted programs designed to teach students how to teach."

On postdocs:

"Some statistics about postdoctoral associates are enlightening. In 2009, the most recent year for which the NSF has published detailed data, there were approximately 4200 postdocs in chemistry, 2350 in biochemistry, and 1100 in chemical engineering. The percentages of temporary visa holders in these groups were 64.7%, 60.7%, and 62.4%, respectively."

"A significant problem in the current employment pipeline for chemists is a bulge at the postdoctoral level. Particularly in more biological areas of chemistry, many current postdocs have previously been postdocs for one or even two appointments. For these individuals, the second, or later, postdoctoral appointment serves largely as a buffer zone in the ebb and flow of the job market; it is not a position that significantly improves one’s job chances." (emphasis mine)

Quite an indictment of the current state of affairs.

Defense labs want more scientists? How about paying them better?

In this week's C&EN, an interesting overview of defense-related US government/military laboratories by Andrea Widener:

As he shows off a flexible screen on the sleeve of a camouflage uniform, Morton estimates that the Army lab’s investment has sped development of the flexible displays by five years. “We are successful in the sense that there will be commercial technology this year that the Army will be able to buy,” he says. 

That success is just the kind the Department of Defense seeks from its nearly $75 billion-per-year science and technology enterprise, which is larger than all other federal R&D programs combined. Its internal research labs and contracts with universities and industry all focus on developing the science and technology that the military will need in the future. 

But DOD is facing changes now that could make designing future technologies more challenging. Shifting military goals, a decreasing overall defense budget, and the globalization of science will all alter DOD’s approaches to science and technology. The very nature of the agency’s mission—its size and bureaucracy, its need for secrecy, and its importance to the U.S.—also colors its future. Charting a path where its basic and applied research can quickly be turned into arms or aircraft or armor will, in part, define whether DOD’s R&D is successful.

I found this section on getting a better sense of other nations' military-oriented science very interesting:

Some in Congress would rather not see cooperation between the U.S. and its rival countries, especially China, particularly on research with potential national security implications. But nowadays any researcher not working with scientists abroad would be missing out on what could be important research developments, Hummel says.  

The Office of Naval Research Global, the military’s main outreach arm to the global scientific community, has posts and scientists on five continents. But more needs to be done to make sure DOD is connected to scientists worldwide, he says. “We have got to get much better than we are today at dealing with the ubiquity of knowledge discovery,” Hummel explains. “Europe is probably doing better, and China is unequivocally doing better.” 

That's an interesting and delicate dance to have to perform, but being blind to advances in science elsewhere is really not a good idea. I found this section to be interesting, to say the least:

Globalization is also causing problems with recruiting and retaining the right people to work on military problems. “I was worried when I was in charge, and I still worry now: Are we getting the talent pool that is both technically really talented and can get clearance?” Rees says, pointing out that he is especially concerned about recruiting high-quality engineers. 

Chabalowski says that the Army Research Lab is recruiting great staff, but “some of the best and brightest we just can’t get” because they are not U.S. citizens. “It’s that simple. “When you look at the population in graduate school in science, technology, engineering, and math, it is overwhelmingly foreign nationals,” Chabalowski continues. “And we would love to tap into that.” The ability to recruit noncitizens will have to be authorized by Congress, which will need to pass legislation to fast-track citizenship for newly minted science Ph.D.s. 

Here's my thought process on this last point by Dr. Chabalowski:

• Passing fast-track citizenship for newly minted science Ph.D.s seems like a potentially unwise move and a really kludgey way to get better scientists and engineers into the military research establishment. 
• Relying on citizenship as a first-pass proxy for "will not betray the US government's secrets" seems really unwise as well. The Walker spy ring and Aldrich Ames were all US citizens. 

If the US government wants to recruit better domestic scientists into the military research complex, they can do it easily: promise them interesting problems (not an issue, I suspect), offer them more stability and freedom than the private sector might be able to provide and pay their scientists better. Simple as that (okay, that last one wasn't simple.)