Category Archives: Jobs

Guess What? Still No STEM Crisis

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

By way of our far-flung network of correspondents, we discover that there are still too many STEM graduates for STEM jobs: Our examination of the IT labor market, guestworker flows, and the STEM education pipeline finds consistent and clear trends … Continue reading →

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Soft Market for Scientists

Posted on April 13, 2013 by

Update: After tweeting with Noah Smith, I realized this post came out all mangled. The point was not to bash foreign scientists, but to point out that the strongest advocates for H1-B visas as well as more PhDs (from anywhere) … Continue reading →

Posted in Jobs | 4 Comments

Regarding Immigration, We Need More Chaim Yankels

Posted on March 5, 2013 by

One of the incongruous things about the proposals to focus on high-skilled immigrants is that the forbears of most of the people making these arguments, in most cases, were probably anything but high-skilled. They were, to use a Yiddish phrase, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Immigration, Jobs

The PhD Glut Makes the Big Time

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

Well, I guess all of that complaining about the non-existent STEM crisis finally got some attention by the Very Serious People, in this case The Atlantic. It’s worth a read, although there are lots of issues about quality of life, … Continue reading →

Posted in Funding, Jobs, NIH | 6 Comments

Unemployment and the Long and Short Run

Posted on February 10, 2013 by

While Paul Campos is writing specifically about law professors, I think every academic economist should take this to heart (boldface mine): A particularly critical benefit of their jobs that tenured legal academics tend to undervalue when they burble on about … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Jobs

The PhD Glut Isn’t Just Biomedical: Welcome to the Sh-tstorm, Chemists

Posted on February 4, 2013 by

Economist and author of How Economics Shapes Science Paula Stephan notes that there’s a PhD glut in chemistry too (boldface mine): It did not take long, however, for this to change. Faculty quickly learned to include graduate students and postdocs … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Funding, Jobs, NIH, NSF | 4 Comments

Nobody Really Cares About Deficits: It’s the Economy, Stupid

Posted on May 29, 2012 by

Remember that phrase? Anyway, I’ve long been convinced that “deficits” are what people say when the economy is bad. Since the U.S., for most of the last eighty years, has run deficits (and this isn’t a bad thing), it also … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Fucking Morons, Jobs | 2 Comments

It Sure Looks Like There’s a PhD Glut, Especially If You’re a Young PhD

Posted on April 24, 2012 by

And especially if you’re interested in traditional industry or academia. Comrade PhysioProf, however, declares: There is a big fucken snivel-fest going on over at DrugMonkey about how terrible it is for universities to increase the number of PhDs they award … Continue reading →

Posted in Funding, Jobs, NIH | 9 Comments

The False Distinction Between Innovation and Production: More Technobrat Follies

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

Many, many, many moons ago, there was a saying, “Never trust anyone over thirty.” Well, Matt Yglesias, along with older older economists who should know better, are turning that statement on its head. It doesn’t surprise me that Yglesias would … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Genomics, Jobs | 4 Comments

During the Bush Presidency, We Paid People to Do Stuff…And It Worked!

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

Leaving aside the idiotic conservative trope that “government jobs aren’t real jobs”–your local fireman or police officer might be surprised to learn that–the conservative opposition to reducing unemployment by paying people to do stuff that needs doing has been incredibly … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, Economics, Fucking Morons, Jobs | 1 Comment