In the past we’ve been told that there is a shortage of tech workers (or rather , there isn’t because we can import them), and businesses have demanded more visas or suggested other solutions to the problem.

Now they’re saying we have enough, they just are leaving the field for richer professions:

The supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.

In addition, the current economy has temporarily eased the problem (if it is a problem)— applications are down because fewer companies are hiring.

I’m beginning to see a more consistent picture here, if it is indeed the case that potential sci/tech workers simply choose other, more lucrative fields. Recipients of H-1B visas only have to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage for the region, or the employer’s actual average wage, but if that average wage is for an average employee, and your visa recipient is more capable than that, you can drive the salaries down, much like evaporative cooling lowers temperatures. Employers are not forced to pay higher wages for highly skilled US workers, so they diffuse to different fields. The average salary can drop, but the skill level increases, and average skill levels must accept lower wages as long as there is a supply via the visa program. Whether this is actually what’s happening, I don’t know. I don’t think the “we’re not capturing their interest” model is discounted, and it’s likely that multiple factors come into play in figuring out why there aren’t more science students entering the workforce.

I disagree with the proposal that we need fewer science students. There’s a mistaken notion that if you don’t directly use your degree in your adult life that the system has somehow failed, and I’d hate for the result to be less emphasis on science. The utility of learning science isn’t that everyone will become a scientist by profession; we want students to learn English literature and philosophy and some even major in these subjects, but do we expect philosophy majors to all become professional philosophers? The utility of science is that it helps teach us critical thinking, and the ability to separate truth from fraudulent mumbo-jumbo helps protect us from those charlatans who would try and peddle perpetual motion machines, or tell you the earth is 6000 years old, or convince you that vaccines cause autism. I agree with Zapperz on this

As far as I’m concerned, my interest in physics education is more towards having student be literate in physics and how it is done, rather than trying to gear them towards specializing or majoring in physics. I don’t care if they end up as physicist or not, but they shouldn’t be ignorant of what physics is, and how we gather our knowledge.