Push For Science Majors, But Lots Of Unemployed Ph.D's Already

[HiPointDem]

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases...three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field... experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs...

That reality runs counter to messages sent by President Obama, the National Science Foundation and other influential groups, who in recent years have called for U.S. universities to churn out more scientists....But it’s questionable whether those youths will be able to find work when they get a PhD. Although jobs in some high-tech areas, especially computer and petroleum engineering, seem to be booming, the market is much tighter for lab-bound scientists — those seeking new discoveries in biology, chemistry and medicine.

Traditional academic jobs are scarcer than ever. Once a primary career path, only 14 percent of those with a PhD in biology and the life sciences now land a coveted academic position within five years, according to a 2009 NSF survey. That figure has been steadily declining since the 1970s, said Paula Stephan, an economist at Georgia State University who studies the scientific workforce...

The pharmaceutical industry once offered a haven for biologists and chemists who did not go into academia... But a decade of slash-and-burn mergers; stagnating profit (note: i question this, i believe pharma profit margins are among the highest); exporting of jobs to India, China and Europe; and declining investment in research and development have dramatically shrunk the U.S. drug industry, with research positions taking heavy hits.

Since 2000, U.S. drug firms have slashed 300,000 jobs, according to an analysis by consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas....

Many Ph.D's are working low wage jobs - sometimes doing low paying post doc jobs for five, seven or ten years. Most post doc's are being exploited by a system set up to do just that...

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2012/07/push-for-science-majors-but-lots-of.html

[pnwmom]

1. K & R. n/t

[dimbear]

2. Knowledge isn't worth what it used to be worth. Something to do with those magic

electronic boxes that are so smart by themselves.

[glowing]

3. Yep! When people hear I have a science degree,

but manage a hotel, they can't believe it.. Why waste my brain their... They have been told there aren't enough scientists, but it's lie the politicians tell to approve more visas.

Oh, and to tell you that public education sucks... Women aren't going into the field. I'd say most my graduating class in the science wing were female.. Men still tend to get the jobs... And it's a "who do you know" type of field if u want to do research OR u have to beg to vollunteer somewhere to try for a way in the door and at least rack up experience.

[a la izquierda]

4. Academics in general...

Is a who you know field

[MattBaggins]

37. The world in general isa who you know place

[FarCenter]

20. My recollection of one survey was that PhD Biology grads made less than Master Biology

Too much specialization, specialties go from hot to cold too fast, and too much orientation to preparing for an academic career in most research university departments.

[xchrom]

5. What a waste & it shouldn't be that way. Nt

[quaker bill]

6. Education is not the answer to globalization

The world has demand for only so many PhDs. The world has a limited demand for bricklayers too, it is just that the number is much larger.

If they focus on it, China and India can produce more people with any one particular job qualification than the world actually needs, all the while being fairly selective about who they train.

Pushing our kids to higher and higher levels of achievement will not solve the fundamental problem of globalization, but it will produce a better educated class of frycooks.

Globalization gets fixed when the cost of transportation for manufactured goods rises sufficiently to offset wage differentials, or when wage differentials decline due to unionization overseas. I expect transportation costs to come into play first.

The other factor is automation, our robots are increasingly cheaper than overseas labor. The problem with this is that automated factories have far fewer jobs, which is part of why they are cheaper. Go far enough on the automation end and the entire economy needs restructuring, the turn of last century to "Mad Men" vintage model of economic arragements dies as there are insufficient real jobs to sustain a middle class capable of purchasing the output.

"Fordism" was good stuff while it lasted, but the model required an industry that needed lots of people to produce Fords, each paid a decent wage for doing so. First automation, and then offshoring gutted this economic model, now even better automation is beginning to gut the offshoring model. Sooner or later (and I think sooner) the concept of a "job" and the need for one will need to be re-evaluated at a very basic social contract level. We just don't need the number of manhours available to produce the necessities of life anymore, and this difference will only grow with time.

[area51]

13. +1

We're overpopulated in terms of jobs available in the U.S. I believe it also dovetails into the reason why we've never had a right to health care in this country. If there were a better ratio of people to jobs, bosses would demand healthy workers.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. I've been saying this for years...

the population is outgrowing its ability to find work for itself.

If anyone thinks it's bad here, head for those parts of the world where unemployment numbers of 50% and up are becoming the new normal.

In the past that this happened, new industries arose to absorb surplus workers, but that may not work any more.

[quaker bill]

34. Most new industries anymore

are simply new elaborations of old industries. The PC was the last new big thing, and that was back in the 80's?

[HiPointDem]

40. the availability of work has little to do with population growth.

[coalition_unwilling]

19. This is a really profound post. I would love to see you elaborate on its themes and

do your own OP.

Very forward-thinking and really good stuff.

I think it's time we re-organized the economy to meet people's needs, rather than merely gratify the 'profit motive.' Between your ideas and mine, I think there's a lot of room for a new vision. An intermediate step might be to re-define full employment as a 30-hour workweek and\or qualify people for "retirement" and Social Security at age 50.

Your phrase "A better educated class of frycooks" really resonates. Sounds like a book title.

[Grandcanyon99]

30. Well put

I have been working in automation for years. I have said many times to anyone who would listen, that lower cost automation is replacing the need for workers at an exponential rate, while global population continues to grow. We all can't sell each other insurance or cut hair. The only growth sector globally is health care. Which is but another service. I see a time in the not to distant future where middle class jobs will be a difficult to find precious commodity.

[quaker bill]

32. I once worked as shop foreman on a production line

The guys I supervised were WWII and Korean War vets. They had made lives, in this case, making prescription eyeglasses. It required 8 people trained to properly maintain and operate a few dozen pieces of equipment to make eyeglasses that met all the standards for accuracy and strength (impact resistance). (the inside jokes there often involved quotes from "The Honeymooners" -Jackie Gleason, to give you a taste of it, one of them had Ed Norton down to a science) They were great guys, not a rocket scientist among them, but all really decent hard working people.

They and I were all replaced at once in 1980 by automation through a leveraged buyout. We came in as usual on wednesday to be told our last day was Friday.

Now, 1 person at a eyeglass superstore with automated equipment replaces them. What do you do with the other 7?

[bbgrunt]

33. welcome to DU. We are all Luddites now.

[bbgrunt]

31. great post. you nailed it.....explains exactly why we are seeing

the shift to social darwinism and the attitude that people are being seen as "useless eaters" rather than valuable assets.

[Romulox]

38. Great post indeed, but unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that the competition will end

just because we find ourselves losing.

China and India have nearly 3 billion people between them, and they are (figuratively and sometimes literally) starving--for everything we have. They will not stop running because we are winded...

[quaker bill]

44. You are correct, it will not end

and winded or not, we will eventually lose. You have identified it and it is really very simple, the very best and brightest, the top 10% of the populations of India and China outnumber us, all of us, teabaggers included. We aren't going to out innovate them, and we aren't going to out educate them, there simply aren't enough of us with the capacity.

The bigger question is why run the race?

We need to mature as a society. Our only actual hope is to stop competing with each other. There is too much wasted effort in competition. When a company comes along and beats its competitors, its competitors go broke, jobs are lost and resources are wasted. Just drive around and see all the empty storefronts, these are the fruit of competition.

We need to get to know our neighbors and do business with them. My purchases are their income, and their purchases are my income. Stop shopping with corporations. Plutocrats take a slice of every dollar we spend in the company stores, and guess what, they keep it.

The even bigger question is why be a global power? The only people winning the race for global power are the 1% who can live transnationally. Our true national interests need a vastly smaller army. We need an army so small that no future President would consider an Iraq or Afghanistan without the full and very willing support of many allies. Then we can take the extra half trillion dollars a year and use it to support real community infrastructure that would benefit all.

[SoCalDem]

7. There are never again going to be "enough" jobs

Think about it.. a career lasts 30-40 years. That's a LOT of work for a job, and the person doing it.


In a generation, MANY things have changed in every job. Automation/robots/computers have made many jobs that once needed several humans in varying levels of effort, suddenly a no-human job.

The people once attached to (and trained for) those jobs are STILL here...needing an income and yet their jobs are now gone forever.

The schools are still churning out people to do jobs that are either gone or are going away


In the 80's , older folks in the workforce then could retire because they had pensions, so there was a way for younger people to work their way up into better jobs, but once the safety nets started getting shredded, people have to hand onto every last drop of employment, for as long as they can.

[NNN0LHI]

9. If we don't switch to a 32 hour, 8 hours per day, 4 day workweek you are right

But if we had done that in 1979 when my union was pushing for it there would be a labor shortage right now.

But ideas like that seem too radical even for people who call themselves liberals on sites like this one.

Americans generally hate change.

Don

[SoCalDem]

10. And of course there is the money too.

Employers will NEVER pay a 32 hr/4day worker enough to actually live on.

The Big-Casino mentality has crept into business

It's no longer "good enough" to run an efficient company that treats employees well, and still makes a tidy sum for the owners.

In recent decades, businesses seem to be there for the big-payoff when a Bain-ish entity comes a-knocking with a check for the owner, and pink slips for the employees.

We've managed to forget what businesses are really about.

making a product/service that is needed/wanted by the community, and paying the people who do the work enough so they can buy/use the goods & services.. The "circle of business life".
When workers are starved of wages/time , and all the profits are vacuumed out of the businesses and into the bosses' pockets, the circle is broken.

[NNN0LHI]

11. They aren't paying enough for a 5-day workweek right now

Only one way to get that. Through collective bargaining.

Don

[antigone382]

15. Or employee-owned cooperatives. n/t

[4th law of robotics]

39. I think that's the way to go

although I wouldn't try to do it all at once.

I would prefer we shave off an hour every year for the next 8 years (and raise MW accordingly).

Limiting the growth of the labor pool would also be a good thing.

By A) limiting immigration (both legal and illegal) and B) working to make birth control more readily available.

[NNN0LHI]

42. Cant be done all at once because the employers couldn't hire and train new employees fast enough

That is why when the UAW achieved this in 1979 it was to be done incrementally.

But then Reagan became president and we had to give it back in our first concession contract in 1982.

Don

[TreasonousBastard]

17. As I said above, we are outreproducing our ability to produce work.

[Johonny]

23. But you need scientist to make your robot, computer and automation

yet even though in theory all these new age super robots and things are suppose to be taking over, the fact is few companies have research labs anymore. Even extremely high tech companies don't spend on research. Obama's Apollo project on alternative energy never got started, going to Mars yeah on nickels a day, high speed rail? Creeping at a snails pace of construction, etc... Industry would rather someone else pay for the research then steal the results. If they do pay for research it is all applied. Want to build a super collider that will look at the fundamental physics of the universe, go to Europe. In the US research better build a sell-able widget in 3 years or your ass gets fired.

Scientist are worried about being replaced by no one, not robots, automation and computers.

[SoCalDem]

24. Not all that many, and many of the ones already in the work force are not eager to leave

so that younger folks can take their place.. Most cannot afford to quit

[Johonny]

28. It use to be you wanted older scientist

They were the ones that knew what the company previously did. You basically were paying for their stored knowledge. Science and technology are things where a few 70 or 80 year olds you can ask a question of can save you months of research. Today not so much. They are the first one fired come cutting time. Technically they get packages to take retirement or early retirement etc. The fact is new people work for less and apparently never think to ask why they don't get paid for overtime, never think to join the union, why they have to work during vacation etc... My company fired 8 % of it's work force this year. It was the oldest people that went. Same everywhere in science. They are down sizing and at the same time removing people 55+ who remember when science was a gateway to a middle class life. Today's for-profits want young people they can work to death with no overtime and the people on top get all the credit and $$ for their work. And you better get results because there are tons of out of work PhDs waiting for you spot. They don't want to discover the unknown wonders of the universe, they want a marketable widget.

[datasuspect]

8. russia and china provide scientists

we provide consumers and slaves

[SoutherDem]

12. Does the fact that facts don't matter anymore have something to do with this?

When large numbers of Americans believe the Earth is 6000 years old, climate change is a hoax, and will trust Rush on science before they believe a scientist on science we have a real problem.
Remember when the oil industry couldn't get scientist to support destroying the Earth they just went to Liberty University or the like to get their scientist who will support what ever they are told to.

[JHB]

14. Who needs educated people to research stuff when...

...you can make more money by squeezing and swindling people?

It's easier to manage, and gives a surer return.

[TreasonousBastard]

18. Law schools have been doing this for years...

as have liberal arts schools and every other institution trying to maintain a student base and some semblance of relevance.

We probably will be cranking out surplus educated people for some time to come.

[Poll_Blind]

21. Very interesting conversation in this thread, worth reading too!

PB

[aikoaiko]

22. I was forunate to get my PhD in 1999 when academic jobs were still reasonably available

I had to be willing to move to another state, but that was a small price to pay.

Doctoral institutions definitely need to ween themselves off graduate students to sustainable levels.

[sweetapogee]

25. the problem

in my opinion is that public schools in the USA spend too much time and energy on math and not on the all important social skills and government policy needs.

[Turbineguy]

26. Under our system we can only pay

investment bankers and CEO's. There is simply no money left for anyone else. They are expected to give their talents for the good of society. You know, the way Ayn Rand envisioned it.

[riderinthestorm]

27. Oh they just chose the wrong major er...career...wait its that they chose the wrong college

The number of DUers who want to blame the students for their employment and debt woes makes me crazy. I wonder if any of them will chime in here....

These people chose to begin studying for their careers 10 years ago when (presumably) it was still very feasible for them to have that career and a decent paying job. Now, years and many dollars later, they're sunk. There are recent college grads who embarked on their chosen professions even 5 years ago who can't find work now - science, math, skills based careers that were a "sure" thing but don't guarantee anything anymore.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with society's current trend in blaming grads for ending up in this spot when the reality is that you can plan and research all you want but in the end, some of this is out of your control by the time you graduate.

[Viking12]

29. The dirty little secret of the academy...

Decent paying, secure, tenure-track jobs are being phased out administratively. No formal policy. No public discussion. At the University where I work, we've gone from more than 400+ tenure-track jobs to fewer than 230 while increasing enrollment. Class sizes continue to grow. When a tenured prof retires, they replace him with adjunct faculty - lower pay, no job security.

[riderinthestorm]

35. Morning kick! nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

41. afternoon kick

[riderinthestorm]

45. Yup, great minds and all that...

[Romulox]

36. So..."competing in the world economy!" is only for *blue* collar workers??? I thought globalism was

supposed to be a good thing for the majority, despite the sacrifices a few workers were asked to make?

But now that those "sacrificing" workers are engineers, the deal must change? That would be unfair even if it were realistic.

[NNN0LHI]

43. Been saying this for years

This recession has cut deeper into the upper income white collar class than any of the other 6 recession I have experienced.

I have some relatives who have never been touched by any recession before this one. But they are sure hurting now.

When I was laid off during the 80's they used to show their "concern", by snidely asking me, "Have you been called back to work yet?", with their noses up in the air.

Chickens have come home to roost.

Don