CBS: Census Data Show U.S. Doesn't Have Shortage of STEM Workers

Finally, the mainstream media is realizing that the notion that there is a shortage of American high-tech workers is a myth. 

After the Census Bureau reported on Thursday that “74% of those with a bachelor’s degree in these subjects don’t work in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs,” CBS News concluded that the new data suggest that notion “is largely a myth.”

Census sociologist Christin Landivar noted that though “STEM graduates have relatively low unemployment,” they are “not employed in STEM occupations.”

The high-tech industry, like Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, has received largely a free pass on the issue in pushing for drastic increases in the number of guest-worker visas in amnesty legislation. That has puzzled some of the top scholars, especially in light of reports from liberal, nonpartisan, and conservative organizations that have all shown that the country has a surplus–and not a shortage–of American high-tech workers.

As Breitbart News has reported, a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report found that, from 2007-2012, “the number of new immigrants with STEM degrees admitted each year [was] by itself higher than the total growth in STEM employment.” That report was “consistent with research from Georgetown University, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the Rand Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council, which have also found no evidence that America has a shortage of high-tech workers.”

In addition, four nonpartisan scholars have also debunked the notion that there is a shortage of STEM workers. Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, “said there are 50% more graduates than job openings in the STEM fields.” He has also repeatedly emphasized that the IT sector has been “an area of social mobility,” and increasing the number of visas without questions takes jobs away from American workers and lowers the wages of those who do find STEM jobs.

“You’ve got people who come from working-class backgrounds who go into these sectors,” Hira recently said. “It’s a way of getting into the middle class and the professional class, and that’s being cut off.”