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Working
towards a workforce
July
15, 2002
By
Ketaki Sood and Larta
Staff
How
long can the U.S. import its way out of a critical shortage of science
and engineering workers? The answer is unclear, but the red flags have
recently become more evident.
One
of the key drivers of the technology industry is a continuous supply of
skilled workforce. One normally wouldn't think that skilled workforce
would be a scarce resource in the United States, given its prowess in
universities specializing in the sciences. Statistics indicate otherwise,
however, with graduate enrollment in science and engineering falling since
1993.
Although
enrollment numbers show an increase for 1999 and 2000, non-U.S. citizens
accounted for most of the 11% increase. Globalization and technological
expansion have spurred an increase in global workforce mobility, especially
within science and engineering. This mobility puts the American economy
in a position of risk, with the relocation of labor being a possible consequence.
How to address
such workforce issues will not be easy. The enrollment of U.S. citizens
and permanent residents in science and engineering continued to fall by
3% between 1999 and 2000, for instance. Obtaining a science or engineering
graduate degree is expensive and time-consuming, a fact which deters some
of the best and brightest, who already have many options in this relatively
open economy. In addition, the U.S. government has recently been more
liberal in handing out H-1B visas to foreigners to specifically fill entry-level
jobs in tech firms; such actions, while providing workforce to needy companies,
disincentivize potential science and engineering graduates in this country
from entering such fields. Declining job prospects since the burst of
the tech bubble are not likely to help either. The long-term growth of
the U.S. economy, however, relies on such graduates, and measures should
be taken to make U.S. citizens and residents more responsive to graduate
programs in science and engineering.
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