stem

STEM and the American Workforce, a new report backed mostly by science associations, points to STEM jobs as one-third of direct employment, two-thirds of total employment, and 69 percent of America’s GDP. The authors highlight that 60 percent of STEM jobs are filled by people without bachelor’s degrees. Those are eye-popping numbers until one starts to dig into what the report considers a STEM job, which were decided on a case-by-case basis according to the occupation’s sector and educational requirements. This is not the only recent STEM employment study to take an expansive view of the field. Earlier this year, the Idaho STEM Action Center reported that the number of unfilled STEM jobs in the state had doubled, to 7,633, in just three years. Digging into the state labor agency’s data indicates that a large portion of these openings are in healthcare, with the plurality of openings seeking registered nurses.

In an effort to close the gender gap in STEM, a $25 million commitment from the Lyda Hill Foundation will help to build a coalition of science institutions along with names and brands in popular culture to help fund and elevate women in STEM fields. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the coalition members, will select 100 women in STEM professions to serve as ambassadors for the new IF/THEN Initiative, to help build skills and opportunities among middle school girls in science communication, public engagement, media, diversity and inclusion, and STEM education.

Envisioning a future where all Americans will have lifelong access to high-quality STEM education, and where the U.S. will be the global leader in STEM literacy, innovation and employment, the federal government released a five-year strategic plan for STEM education. Noting that the federal government has a key role to play in furthering STEM education and removing barriers to participation in STEM careers, especially for women and other underrepresented groups, the report issues a call to action for a nationwide collaboration with learners, families, educators, communities and employers.

While diversity plays a critical role in both improving the quality and increasing the rate of innovation, women and several minority groups remain underrepresented in STEM fields. Several studies find that improving the retention rate of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM at the college level can have significant impacts on improving the diversity and representativeness of the STEM workforce. For women and other underrepresented groups, the college experience can create unique roadblocks and barriers that ultimately cause them to switch majors or even leave college. Several recent studies have examined strategies to improve the retention rate of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM degrees at institution of higher education. The strategies range from pre-college STEM academies to establishing cohorts of underrepresented students.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivy announced the Alabama HBCU Co-Op Pilot Program to provide students at the state’s 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with the opportunity for hands-on work experience in STEM fields as well as create greater collaboration between Alabama’s HBCUs, industry, and government. Participating students will be required to complete three co-op semesters with some of the state’s top companies in order to gain a sense of professional experience in the area of their majors. Upon successful completion of the program, students will receive a Certificate of Completion. The pilot program is scheduled to launch in early 2019.

As the National Science Foundation announces awards for five new regional academic centers to encourage underrepresented populations to pursue and attain college degrees related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a recent working paper from two Harvard researchers finds an explanation for the popularly perceived persistent shortage of STEM workers: changes in technology.  The rapid pace of technological change is making the skills of the existing STEM workforce obsolete in much shorter time than previously, flattening their wages and reducing opportunity for advancement after seeing an initial high wage premium at the beginning of their careers. 

As the National Science Foundation points out in a recent press release, people of Hispanic descent comprise 16 percent of the U.S. workforce, but only 6 percent of people working in STEM-related occupations.  Other minorities, including African Americans and Native Americans are also underrepresented in the career paths most critical to maintain American preeminence in innovation and science. New funding rounds distributed by three federal initiatives at NSF and NASA intend to help improve the imbalance.

Noting that we have reached a point in time where STEM “influences every aspect of our education, work, and community life,” STEMconnector, a professional services firm, has released a new report that examines the current state of the field, identifies gaps and makes recommendations for action and investment. State of STEM highlights “five critical gaps” in the STEM workforce: a fundamental skills gap; belief gap; postsecondary education gap; geographic gap; and, demographic gap. The interaction of these gaps throughout the STEM ecosystem creates an overall opportunity gap for students and job seekers, a workforce development challenge for educators and a business imperative for employers, the report states.

The majority (75 percent) of all high school students were enrolled in a STEM course during the 2015-16 school year, according to the newest Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). For the first time, the CRDC includes new categories of data on STEM course taking, showing that some higher level math and science courses are offered at fewer high schools. That figure is even more pronounced at the approximately 5,000 high schools with high black and Latino enrollment (i.e. schools with more than 75 percent black and Latino student enrollment), where higher level mathematics and science courses are offered at a lower rate than the overall population of all high schools.

Across the nation, R&D at colleges and universities plays an important role in generating promising inventions, training our STEM talent pipeline, and supporting regional economic development. An SSTI analysis of National Science Foundation data finds that higher-education R&D (HERD) is a multi-billion dollar industry that directly employs nearly one million personnel on projects and grants in the United States. However, the locations of R&D projects and personnel differ greatly by state and region.