Shortage of Scientists and Engineers

I’m glad someone is finally calling bullshit on this meme.  There is no shortage.  There hasn’t been since the .com bubble burst, and the Y2K issue got cleared up.  I know plenty of scientists who have Ph.D., and are well respected in their fields, who are having a hard time finding work in this market.  Pharmaceutical research jobs have been hard to come by for almost a decade.  I left computer hardware engineering because jobs in information technology paid a lot better, and IT managers don’t work to the same types of unrealistic deadlines that software and hardware people often have imposed on them.

If there were really a shortage, salaries would be going up in response, and jobs would be easy to come by.  That’s not the case.  There is no shortage, except in the minds of politicians.

Hat tip to Instapundit

2 thoughts on “Shortage of Scientists and Engineers”

  1. Well, there are some niche/geographic shortages.

    Know a Sharepoint expert with a security clearance who wants to move to Florida? Neither do I… but I have about 8 job reqs.

  2. A few rapid-fire points about the post:

    There isn’t a shortage of engineers, there’s a shortage of CHEAP engineers.

    There really isn’t a shortage of engineering jobs, either, it’s just hard to get one because:
    Companies have worked themselves into a corner with their inability or unwillingness to train anyone that doesn’t fit the exact specifications of a job requirement, even if the candidate has skills that can easily cross over into something else.

    Companies insist on getting salary requirements up-front, which makes it impossible to get anywhere close to a negotiation phase.

    Companies have decided to farm out recruitment to staffing firms, creating another layer of people who don’t know what they’re talking about filtering out resumes for people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

    PhD’s are going to have a hard time finding a job because PhD’s are extraordinarily specialized in their chosen field. The jobs are probably out there. Local jobs are probably going to be scarce.

    The best way to find a job is to bypass all of the HR people and the headhunters and have a friend recommend you.

Comments are closed.