When it comes to employment, science and technology graduates fare only slightly better than ‘starving artists’
‘Despite all our encouragement for students to study natural and physical sciences, these students are actually among those leastlikely to get a job.’Photograph: Joel Carrett/EPA
We’ve experimented with a bunch of naff names here in Australia. In the 1990s, Bob Hawke wanted us to become theclever country. Two decades later, Malcolm Turnbull aspired to make us aninnovation nation.
Despite our apparent inability to find a sufficiently sticky catchphrase, we’ve spent decades going full steam on Stem. We are still being advised that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) skills arecrucialfor Australia’s changing future. Highly skilled, highly technical jobs in knowledge-driven fields are surely going to be our ticket to increased productivity and prosperity.
Our best and brightest have been listening, and are taking action.
In recent years, enrolments inmanagement and commerce have declined. There has been a slow but steady increase in the number of students starting in engineering and technology. There’s even been an uptick in enrolments in “natural and physical sciences” – including maths, physics, chemistry and biology.
What happens to these students after they graduate? The annual Graduate Outcomes Survey, conducted by the Social Research Centre, provides some insight.
The survey suggests most university graduates – Stem included – get jobs promptly after graduation. But there are differences between disciplines.
Despite all our encouragement for students to study natural and physical sciences, these students are actually among those leastlikely to get a job.
Only 86% of science graduates in 2022 reported having found employment within four months of graduating. Despite the hype, when it comes to getting a job, science and technology graduates fare only slightly better than “starving artists”.
The market factor
To understand why, one should look to the actual demand in the market.
A graduate can get two types of jobs. A job that is directly relevant to their qualifications and skills, or one that is not. Most graduates, one assumes, would prefer the former, holding other factors constant.
So an engineer wants to work as an engineer, perhaps even in an engineering firm. No problem. As of February 2023, we hadover 200,000people employed as engineers across Australia. There are over 20,000 employing engineering firms who might like to hire them. Projections are that demand for engineers will increase.
It’s a different story for scientists and mathematicians.
There are around10,000working chemists – one for every 20 engineers. Then there are just 12,400 mathematicians, actuaries and statisticians. And all together, there are just 2,207 employing businesses in scientific research services.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/01/australia-aimed-for-and-got-more-stem-graduates-so-where-are-the-jobs-for-them
