Graduate gloom
Speaking at the University of Michigan last fall, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called on the US education system to "triple and quadruple the number of engineers, scientists" and STEM students it mints — as a vital element to American competition with China.
Indeed, the system had already kicked into a higher gear as the Biden administration implemented its grand visions of reviving large-scale science and technology research and stepping up manufacturing capacity.
By last year, the number of 4-year college students majoring in computer and information sciences had surpassed 595,000 — up 31% on 2019.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Who's not delivering is the employers, at least in enough scale to offer many new graduates what they'd been counting on. The tech industry remains in retrenchment mode when it comes to employment, after a string of layoffs that followed a big pandemic boom.
Meta Platforms Inc., for instance, was a top employer for Rice University seniors in 2022, but last year the tech company didn't hire any graduates, according to the school's career center.
It's not just in tech: Unemployment for recent college graduates ticked up again in March, even as the rate held steady for all college graduates. Confidence among entry-level workers is the lowest in Glassdoor data going back to 2016.
The rapidly evolving landscape for artificial intelligence should be creating demand for new hires with expertise in machine learning and data science. But it could also be that the technology itself is removing the need for entry-level workers.
Indeed, the system had already kicked into a higher gear as the Biden administration implemented its grand visions of reviving large-scale science and technology research and stepping up manufacturing capacity.
By last year, the number of 4-year college students majoring in computer and information sciences had surpassed 595,000 — up 31% on 2019.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Who's not delivering is the employers, at least in enough scale to offer many new graduates what they'd been counting on. The tech industry remains in retrenchment mode when it comes to employment, after a string of layoffs that followed a big pandemic boom.
Meta Platforms Inc., for instance, was a top employer for Rice University seniors in 2022, but last year the tech company didn't hire any graduates, according to the school's career center.
It's not just in tech: Unemployment for recent college graduates ticked up again in March, even as the rate held steady for all college graduates. Confidence among entry-level workers is the lowest in Glassdoor data going back to 2016.
The rapidly evolving landscape for artificial intelligence should be creating demand for new hires with expertise in machine learning and data science. But it could also be that the technology itself is removing the need for entry-level workers.
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