Today there are over half a million unfilled jobs in information technology across all sectors of the economy, which reinforces the notion that computer science has become a basic requisite for 21st century jobs. Economic projections indicate that by 2018, there could be 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs.
The page contains no source for these claims but the first claim of over half a million unfilled jobs in IT is addressed at this link. Googling "2.4 million unfilled jobs by 2018" (without the quotes) reveals that the source for the second claim appears to be a 2011 paper by Anthony P. Carnevale, Nicole Smith and Michelle Melton of Georgetown University titled "STEM". Page 23 of the paper contains the following statement:
We project 2.4 million job vacancies for STEM occupations between 2008 and 2018.
Table 1 on page 24 gives the more precise number of 2,389,200 for total STEM. The table also splits the total up by sector and shows that 1,219,700 (just over half) of the 2.4 million job vacancies are in computer occupations. Also, the title of the table specifies that this is job growth due to new AND replacement STEM jobs. The 1.2 million number comes close to matching projections given by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at this link. The line at the bottom of page 101 at that link gives 1.3836 million as the total computer job openings due to growth and replacement needs from 2008 to 2018. In any case, Figure 1 below shows the numbers from Table 1 referenced above.
This appears to be a huge error. As shown in Figure 1 above, the 2.4 million projection appears to be for the total new and replacement jobs from 2008 to 2018. It's a little difficult to know for sure since the paper gives the cryptic source of "Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce forecast of occupational growth through 2018". It provides no link or footnote to this source. As mentioned above, however, the paper's projection for computer jobs does closely match those of the BLS for the same 2008-2018 period. The BLS source is very clear that this is the total number of new and replacement jobs and NOT the total unfilled STEM jobs in 2018.
It's unclear as to how much of the fault for this error lies with the Georgetown paper and how much lies with those who quote it. The paper is unclear in the way that it states this finding. On the first page of its Conclusion sections it states the following:
And our projections clearly show that demand is rising—there will be 2.4 million job openings for STEM workers by 2018.
That seems very misleading since there were 2.4 million job openings projected during the entire period of 2008-2018, not BY 2018. Also, the paper makes no mention that most, if not all, of these job openings may be filled during the decade. In any case, the claim of 2.4 million unfilled jobs in 2018 will be true only if the projection of new and replacement jobs is correct and not a single worker is hired during the entire decade! Of course, this has been untrue ever since January of 2008, when the first STEM worker of 2008 was hired.
Today there are over half a million unfilled jobs in information technology across all sectors of the economy, which reinforces the notion that computer science has become a basic requisite for 21st century jobs. Economic projections indicate that by 2018, there could be 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs.
Since the claim seems to involve information technology or computer science jobs, it would have made more sense to quote the Georgetown paper's projection of 1.2 million computer openings (the orange area in Figure 1). Quoting the figure for ALL STEM jobs just confuses the issue and potentially misleads the reader.
Table 1.7 Occupational employment and job openings data, 10-year projected, and worker characteristics, first year
(Numbers in thousands)
Employment Employment change Percent Job openings Median
First Last -------------- ----------------- self due to growth annual First Date
Title Code Year Year First Last Number Percent employed and replacements wage Archived
-------------------- ------- ----- ---- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------- ---------------- ------- -----------
Computer Occupations 15-1100 2010 2020 3,426.0 4,184.7 758.8 22.1 4.5 1,366.2 $73,710 04-13-2012
Computer occupations 15-1100 2012 2022 3,682.3 4,333.6 651.3 17.7 3.0 1,240.1 $76,270 12-20-2013
Computer occupations 15-1100 2014 2024 3,916.1 4,404.6 488.5 12.5 2.6 1,083.8 $81,430 01-01-2015
As can be seen above, the BLS projected under 1.1 million for computer job openings from 2014 to 2024. It's likely that projected total STEM job openings has changed as well. It would seem wise to use updated projections than to continue to quote projections that were made nearly 5 year ago. At the very least, some attempt should be made to use the actual data of the past five years to update the original projections.
Even if one did not check the sources, this claim would be difficult to believe. The claim is that there is currently over half a million unfilled jobs in information technology but that in a mere two years (2018), that number will balloon to 2.4 million in STEM (or 1.2 million in computer jobs).
Finally, it is interesting to note the following statement from page 3 of the paper:
First, we thank Lumina Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of our research over the past few years, and in particular, we are grateful for the support of Jamie Merisotis, Hilary Pennington, Holly Zanville, Parminder Jassal, and Ann Person.
Lumina states that it is "committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with degrees, certificates and other high-quality credentials to 60 percent by 2025" and one of many goals of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to "dramatically increase the number of young people who obtain a postsecondary degree or certificate with labor-market value". Also, Bill Gates has repeatedly lobbied for an increase in H-1B visas. That's not to say that the Georgetown study is skewed in the direction of these goals but this is an additional reason to carefully verify the paper's analysis and conclusions.