Examining the State of the U.S. STEM Workforce: Today and Tomorrow

One of the major STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) debates currently underway today in the United States revolves around whether or not there is, in fact, a STEM workforce shortage in the country.

To further examine the myth versus reality discussion, this year’s Bayer Facts of Science Education survey, the 16th in the series, polled talent recruiters at Fortune 1000 companies both STEM and non-STEM alike, about their companies’ current and future STEM workforce supply and demand needs. We chose talent recruiters as the target for our survey because these are the people on the front lines of the STEM shortage argument.

Several trends emerged in the survey.

1. STEM Degree Holders are ‘As’ or ‘More In Demand’ for both STEM and Non-STEM Jobs.

Today, STEM skills are in demand by employers for jobs that are traditionally considered non-STEM, with demand for two- and four-year graduates equipped with these skills exceeding demand for their counterparts who don’t have these skills.

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About the Author

Laurel Rutledge is the vice president of Human Resources for Bayer MaterialScience LLC. She is responsible for providing human resources strategic leadership to meet the challenges and objectives of the business. The Bayer Facts of Science Education is an ongoing public opinion research project commissioned by Bayer since 1995 as part of the company’s award-winning Making Science Make Sense® (MSMS) initiative. For more information about this survey or other Bayer surveys, please visit www.bayerus.com/msms.