SCIENCE & ENGINEERING INDICATORS

Indicators of labor market conditions (such as rates of unemployment and working involuntarily out of one’s degree field) and earnings provide meaningful information on economic rewards and the overall attractiveness of careers in S&E fields. This section suggests that labor market outcomes are relatively favorable for scientists and engineers, although they vary by occupational categories and training level.

Unemployment rates among scientists and engineers tend to be lower than the rates for the labor force as a whole: an estimated 2.7% of scientists and engineers were unemployed compared to 4.9% of the entire U.S. labor force in February 2017 (Table 3-8).^{​The unemployment rate for scientists and engineers was estimated using data from the NCSES National Survey of College Graduates. The BLS civilian unemployment rate for people ages 16 years or older, not seasonally adjusted, is available at https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000 (accessed 15 November 2018). Seasonally adjusted rates are available at https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 (accessed 22 July 2019).} Workers in S&E occupations have historically experienced lower annual unemployment rates than the overall labor force (Figure 3-13).^{​The Current Population Survey is the source of the official U.S. unemployment rate.} Rates, however, varied across occupational categories. Additionally, advanced degree holders were generally less vulnerable to unemployment than those with a bachelor’s as their highest degree (Table 3-8).^{​At the doctorate level, 2015 and 2017 differed from earlier years shown here. The SESTAT data incorporated data from the SDR, which correspond to the doctor’s research/scholarship degree level and are research-focused degrees. The NSCG data used for 2015 and 2017 cover all doctorates regardless of type}

Working outside of one’s chosen field of study for involuntary reasons may create skills mismatches and economic inefficiencies that can be viewed as one indicator of labor market stress. Individuals work outside their highest degree field for a variety of reasons, including labor market conditions such as availability of suitable work or for career and personal reasons (Stenard and Sauermann 2016). Those who reported that they did so because suitable work was not available in their degree field are referred to as involuntarily out-of-field (IOF) workers, and their number relative to all employed individuals is the IOF rate. In 2017, about 7.5% of S&E highest degree holders reported working involuntarily out of their field (Table 3-9).

Similar to other labor market outcomes, IOF rates vary by degree levels and S&E fields of study (Table 3-9). Those with a highest degree in engineering or computer and mathematical sciences have lower IOF rates than those with a highest degree in physical, life, or social sciences. This pattern generally persists across most of the career cycle (Figure 3-14). Additionally, scientists and engineers with advanced degrees are less likely to work involuntarily out of field than those with bachelor’s degrees only. In 2017, IOF rates for scientists and engineers with highest degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate levels were 8%, 4%, and 2%, respectively.

Individuals in S&E occupations earn considerably more than the overall workforce. The median annual salary in 2017 in S&E occupations (regardless of education level or field) was $85,390, which is more than double the median for all U.S. workers ($37,690) (Table 3-10).^{​All earnings reported are in current dollars.} This reflects the high level of formal education and technical skills associated with S&E occupations. Median S&E salaries rose at about the same rate (1.8%) as that for all U.S. workers (2.0%) from 2014 to 2017. Salaries varied across occupational categories. Salaries for workers in S&E-related occupations displayed similar patterns of higher earnings relative to the overall workforce. Health-related occupations, the largest segment of S&E-related occupations, cover a wide variety of workers ranging from physicians, surgeons, and practitioners to nurses, therapists, pharmacists, and health technicians; as a result, these occupations display a large variation in salary levels (Table 3-10).

The earning premium associated with an S&E or S&E-related degree compared to a non-S&E degree is present across most career stages (Figure 3-15). Earnings also vary by degree levels (Figure 3-16) with master’s and doctoral degree holders earning more at all stages of the career cycle relative to bachelor’s degree holders.

In today’s knowledge-based and globally integrated economy—marked by rapid information flow and development of new knowledge, products, and processes—demand for certain skills and abilities may change fast. The employment outcomes of recent graduates are an important indicator of labor market conditions for more current entrants to the labor market. Compared with experienced S&E workers, recent S&E graduates—those between 1 and 5 years since receiving their highest degree—more often bring knowledge about emerging fields and state-of-the-art-skills to the labor market. From the National Survey of College Graduates, among the 27 million scientists and engineers employed in February 2017, 2.7 million were recent S&E degree recipients.

Recent S&E graduates may experience different labor market outcomes than more established graduates, and this experience differs between degree levels and broad fields. In 2017, recent graduates had a higher unemployment rate (4.5%) (Table 3-11) than all scientists and engineers (2.7%) (Table 3-8). Also, an estimated 9.9% of the recent S&E graduates indicated working involuntarily out of field (Table 3-11), compared to 7.5% of all S&E highest degree holders (Table 3-9).

The number of science, engineering, and health (SEH) doctorates who received their doctorate within the past 3 years (recent SEH doctorates) has risen between 2006 and 2017 albeit inconsistently across the broad SEH fields (Table S3-10). For example, the number of computer and information sciences doctorates rose since 2006 and those in psychology declined over this period. Like other recent graduates as well as the overall workforce, trends in labor market outcomes such as unemployment and IOF rates vary across doctoral fields (Table S3-10). Earnings vary by field as well as by position type and employment sector. For example, salaries for SEH doctorates who received their doctorate within the past 5 years ranged from $49,000 for postdoctoral positions in 4-year institutions to $104,000 for those employed in the business sector (Table 3-12). Each sector, however, exhibited substantial internal variation by SEH field of training.

A significant number of S&E doctorate recipients take a postdoctoral appointment (generally known as a postdoc) as their first position after receiving their doctorate. Postdoc positions are defined as temporary, short-term positions, primarily for acquiring additional training in an academic, government, industry, or nonprofit setting.^{​Although the formal job title is often postdoc fellowship or research associate, titles vary among organizations. This report generally uses the shorter, more commonly used, and best-understood name: postdoc. A postdoc is generally considered a temporary position that individuals take primarily for additional training—a period of advanced professional apprenticeship—after completion of a doctorate.} In many S&E disciplines, a postdoc position is generally expected to be competitive for obtaining a faculty position. Individuals in postdoc positions often perform cutting-edge research and receive valuable training.

The estimated number of postdocs varies depending on the data source used. No single data source measures the entire population of postdocs.^{​Three NSF surveys—the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), the Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS), and the Early Career Doctorates Survey (ECDS)—include data related to the number of postdocs in the United States. The three surveys overlap in some populations (such as U.S.-trained doctorate holders and those working in academia) but differ in others. For instance, the SDR covers U.S.-trained postdocs in all sectors—academia, industry, and government—whereas the GSS and the ECDS cover both U.S.- and foreign-trained doctorate holders in academia and federally funded research and development centers, which may be run by for-profit or nonprofit businesses, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program, which is in the government sector. Therefore, postdocs in the industry and government sectors may be missed. In addition, the titles of postdoc researchers vary across organizations and often change as individuals advance through their postdoc appointments; both factors further complicate the data collection process (NIH 2012). Because the SDR covers only U.S.-trained individuals, it substantially undercounts postdoctoral researchers, most of whom were trained outside the United States. To present more complete counts of postdoctoral researchers, this report uses counts from the GSS, which include foreign-trained postdocs employed in U.S. higher education institutions.} NCSES’s 2017 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS) reports that 64,733 doctorates were employed as postdocs and conducting research in SEH fields at U.S. academic institutions and their affiliated research centers and hospitals (NCSES GSS 2017: Table 2-1). This is a slight increase from 2014 (63,593). Over half (55%) of these postdocs are temporary visa holders.

The extent to which a postdoc appointment is part of an individual’s career path varies greatly across SEH fields. Postdocs have historically been more common in life sciences and physical sciences than in other fields, such as social sciences and engineering (Table S3-11).^{​These data are from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), which is administered to individuals receiving research doctoral degrees from all accredited U.S. institutions.} Salaries for this population vary by field of doctorate, and the median salary for postdocs ($49,000) was just over half the median salary for individuals in non-postdoc positions ($86,000) (Table 3-13).

Of the nearly 65,000 academic postdoc positions in SEH fields, women held 40% of them in 2017 (NCSES GSS 2017: Table 2-1). Among postdocs in engineering, however, the proportion of women was lower (22%) and the proportion of temporary visa holders was higher (66%) than the overall SEH shares. The majority of academic postdocs (62%) in 2017 were supported by research grants; the rest were supported by fellowships, traineeships, or other mechanisms (NCSES GSS 2017: Table 3-6).