workforce

The Brookings Institutions Center on Urban & Metropolitan Policy report finds that a leading indicator of a metropolitan areas high technology success is a large gay population. Using four indices, 1990 census data, and the Milken Institute’s measures of high-tech concentration, the new analysis revealed other indications of diversity, such as a high concentration of artists or foreign-born residents, are additional significant indicators of successful technology centers.

The report notes several reasons to advance women in the sciences, including the economic imperative to increase the technological and scientific literacy of Americas workforce. At a time when U.S. industry cannot fill openings for technically advanced jobs, the talents of women are underutilized, reports the National Council for Research on Women.

The report states that brain drain and a lack of technically skilled workers, both scientists and engineers, are common complaints of state and local tech-based economic development practitioners across the country. The author contends government must increase the quantity of scientists and engineers, not simply the cost of the existing pool of available researchers.

The study of more than 2,000 graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1980 and 1990, reports that while nearly 80 percent of graduates remained in Wisconsin, alumni working outside the state made 23 percent more than those who remained in the state. The study also holds that graduates in math or science-related fields were 50 percent more likely to move out-of-state for employment than other alumni.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan released the study showing a large majority of technically educated Michigan university students remain in the state after graduation. Researchers tracked the patterns of approximately 30,000 high-tech sector graduates from 1997 through 2000, and found Michigan retained 79 percent of graduates in the life sciences, information technology and engineering sectors who entered the workforce in high-tech positions.

The survey conducted by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University indicates 2002 college graduates, particularly those with masters and doctoral degrees, can expect a tougher time finding employment after graduation next spring. The largest declines in hiring include engineering, computer science and business.

The possibility that workers could be adversely affected by environmental policies imposed on heavily regulated industries has led to claims of a "jobs versus the environment" trade-off by both business and labor leaders. This paper examines this claim at the industry level for four heavily polluting industries- pulp and paper mills, plastic manufacturers, petroleum refiners, and iron and steel mills.

The National Academy of Sciences meets to discuss issues facing members of groups underrepresented in the Academys membership. Topics discussed include a strategy for engaging K-12 students in science, mentoring minority women in science, and making science accessible.

According to the author, adopting an evolutionary process perspective suggests limits to outsourcing due to governance inseparability and partly tacit complementarity of capabilities as well as related disaggregation costs, including the costs of knowledge codification in the specification of interfaces in supplier/buyer relations, loss of absorptive capacity and integrating capabilities in the suppliers system.

The update analyzes the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ growth projections for the core occupational
classifications of IT workers—computer engineers, systems analysts, computer programmers, database administrators, computer support specialists and all other computer scientists—to assess future U.S. demand.