Apparent Labor Supply Shortages In America

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is one of the most prominent topics between nations, especially in the United States (U. S). The talk about careers in those fields has stretched on for many years, starting in 2001 when the term “STEM” was initially introduced. STEM is heavily impacting many different countries, strengthening the economic competitiveness against the U. S. The wealth and national security has also been positively increasing due to the rising success in the STEM field in the U. S today. However, even with all the positive results that STEM has created for the U. S, many analysts that study the STEM field are concerned that the STEM workforce is weakening, eventually causing the U. S to fall behind in STEM in the coming years.

The concerns of STEM was not really known until they started to rise up due to 3 STEM reports. One was published in 2004 titled Innovate America, while the other 2 were published in 2005 titled Rising Above the Gathering Storm and Tapping Into America’s Potential, all arguing that the apparent “failing K-12 system” is the main reason why fellow graduates are failing to obtain degrees in the stem field. Each reports warns everyone that if the U. S doesn’t change the flaws in the “failing K-12 system” the U. S economy, standard of living, and national security will suffer a major downfall in the STEM field and lead to a period of non economic prosper. The 3 reports led to the rise of 6 major areas of concerns that the U. S STEM field is facing today.

These concerns include academic achievement gaps, U. S teacher quality, the U. S international assessment rankings, foreign student enrollment, global STEM education attainment, as well as the U. S STEM labor supply. Proponents claim that the U. S STEM labor supply is in dire need of workers and that the U. S needs to have an increase of STEM workers in order to remain as the world’s leader in the STEM field. However, critics claim that the U. S is in no shortage of workers in the STEM field and that there are enough graduates and workers with a STEM degree to fill the apparent “shortage” the proponents claim to have. Even with all the belief that there is an apparent shortage in the STEM labor supply, proponents should see that there is not enough viable evidence of a shortage in the labor force and see that there is a good amount of graduating STEM students that can fill in work spots if needed. The concerns of downfall in the U. S economic competitiveness has caused the proponents of the STEM movement to argue that in order to stop the decreasing amount of workers, the U. S should provide increasingly more H1-B visas to foreign STEM graduates and workers. Proponents believe that an influx of immigrants could eventually help rejuvenate the declining U. S economy.