Saturday, November 16, 2013

SKrashen: Unemployment figures among recent college grads do not support claim of STEM worker shortage

SKrashen: Unemployment figures among recent college grads do not support claim of STEM worker shortage:

Unemployment figures among recent college grads do not support claim of STEM worker shortage



Unemployment figures among recent college grads do not support claim of STEM worker shortage
S. Krashen  November, 2013
 
If there is a shortage of STEM workers, there should be very little unemployment among recent college graduates with STEM majors, far less than among recent graduates in non-STEM fields.  

But according to Carnevale and Cheah (2013),  for the years 2010 and 2011, unemployment rates for recent STEM grads, with the exception of those who majored in chemistry and math, are not obviously lower than in many other fields and are even higher than those in several non-STEM fields.

Unemployment Rates

STEM fields
Engineering: 7.4%*
Computer Science, 8.7%,