Nearly a quarter of UK engineering graduates are working in non-graduate jobs or unskilled work such as waiting and shop work, a report suggests.

–BBC News Reporter Katherine Sellgren

A study by researchers Birmingham University seems to go against what people in business are always telling us;

 

“The shortage of science, technology, engineering and maths graduates is an issue for businesses”

–Susan Anderson

I do not understand what people are talking about when they claim there is a shortage of engineers, scientist, mathematicians, computer scientists, and so on.  This is just not true. What is true is that a large proportion of these highly skilled people have to work in “non-scientific” jobs as there is a shortage of jobs relevant to their degrees.

In Physics World (February 2011,  20p ) Jim Grozier basically  complained that banking and finance was taking too many PhD qualified scientists away from science while not directly paying for their training. I agree with the sentiment,  but the point he misses is that there are not enough jobs in science, at Universities or other Labs, to keep these people working in science. Jim himself is one of the lucky ones, he is now based at UCL working in experimental particle physics.  (I vaguely knew Jim when he was PhD student and I a masters student at Sussex. )

It is astonishing, in the light of claims of science graduate shortages, that so few new graduates go into related employment”

–Professor Emma Smith

 

This is why we must all support the Science is Vital campaign.  Much of what the report says also applies to scientists and mathematicians.

To read more about the report by the University of Birmingham have a look at the BBC news report.