Advertisement Editor's Picks The STEM Crisis Is a Myth

Figuring out how to get more students drawn into the "STEM education pipeline" has been a major concern of those arguing that there exists an acute shortage of STEM workers, be it in the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Australia, or almost any country you choose. Typically, the arguments made to encourage students to enter the STEM pipeline center around how interesting STEM careers are and especially how much money you can earn over pursuing non-STEM careers.

However, others point out that many students aren't interested in STEM careers because they see that the academic work needed at both the high school and university-level to pursue a STEM degree is just too hard in comparison to non-STEM degrees. Until this changes (for example, by increasing the readiness of a prospective STEM student by "redshirting" them), the argument goes, don't expect a full STEM pipeline anytime soon.

Another factor little talked about that I personally witnessed has been the changing social compact between STEM workers and employers over the past several decades and the impact it has had on convincing students today to pursue a STEM career. When my father, an electro-optical engineer was laid off from his company late in the recession of 1957-1958, he assumed the company would be rehiring him a few months later when the economy got better. His wasn't an unreasonable assumption, since that was the general practice in the 1950s. When he wasn't soon rehired, and with a new house mortgage to pay and three children under age 5 to feed, my father left his temporary job of selling Electrolux vacuums door-to-door and found another electro-optical engineering job. He stayed with that company for another 25 years when he retired with the usual gold desk pen-set, which now sits on my desk.

When I graduated with my undergraduate computer systems engineering degree in 1977 after a stint in the military, my expectation of a generally comfortable career working for at most a handful of companies was similar to my father's. I remember when my friends and I were looking for jobs, our discussions often centered on whether a company we were planning to interview with was one worth spending a career with. IBM, for example, had a commitment to a life time job for its employees while Digital Equipment Corporation had a no lay-off policy. Other companies were offering similar types of inducements as a reason to work for them. Even so, part of our employment equation now included the possibility of layoffs, given that between 1968 and 1970, aerospace employment (which had been up to that point was promoted as the most exciting industry to be a part of) had dropped from 1 418 000 to 1 177 000 workers as the Vietnam War wound down and the Apollo space program's end was coming into view.

A New York Times article of the time titled, "Aerospace: Tale of a Sick Industry," reported that while mass layoffs in the aerospace industry was not uncommon, "what is unfamiliar and more painful about the current recession is that so many laid off are scientists and engineers whose skills the nation can ill afford to lose permanently." A related Times article reported that among those aerospace employees laid off were the majority of the remaining members of NASA's von Braun group, the "nucleus of the engineering team that launched the first American satellite and built the Saturn 5 moon rocket." The fact that famous rocket engineers could get laid off signaled to us the need to be a bit more cautious in who we decided to go to work for.

While the engineering job market was improving by the time I graduated, the engineering unemployment crisis of a few years earlier had definitely discouraged many students from getting into engineering. It even motivated many to look towards seeking careers in business, a career field decidedly shunned during the 1960s. Business was in fact the most popular field of study for entering college students in 1972 according to the American Council on Education; many laid-off engineers also decided to pursue MBAs or other business degrees since the opportunities in non-tech fields looked brighter.

But mostly throughout the late 1970s and into the mid-to-late 1980s, engineers (and the ever-growing number of IT professionals) identified themselves with their company, and as a member of the upper middle class. Compensation for fully employed electrical engineers, believe it not, was higher than that of the average salaried doctor. The 1979-82 period with recession and high inflation (inflation hit 14.76 percent in 1980) was no fun, but for the most part engineers thought the company they were working for—and were loyal to—would mostly likely be the one they retired with, or if not, then surely the next one. Companies still offered decent pensions (which also helped keep job hopping, which has highly discouraged, down) as well as good educational benefits to keep you current; but you put in a lot of hours in return.

Change was in the air, however, as more engineers outside