687,000 U.S. High-Tech Jobs Lost in a Decade
A new study released by the National Science Board (NSB) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) raises concerns about the global leadership of the U.S. in Science and Technology investments. The report also highlights massive job losses in high-tech.
According to the NSB, the U.S. lost about 687,000 jobs in high-tech since their peak of about 2.5 million in 2000. The organization stated that there have been "permanent" losses in an ongoing trend that affects the areas of aerospace, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications equipment, computer and office equipment as well as scientific instruments.
The NSB carefully criticized the government's approach of funding science and research by stating that there is still a $7 billion budget for the NSF, but the U.S. is quickly dropping in the global view of investment dollars. Between 1999 and 2009, the U.S. share dropped from 38 percent to 31 percent, while Asia gained from 24 to 35 percent during the same time. Especially China is growing fast, the NSB said, and is now the largest science and technology investor behind the U.S.
"Over the last decade, the world has changed dramatically," said José-Marie Griffiths, chair of the NSB committee that oversees production of the report. "It's now a world with very different actors who have made advancement in science and technology a top priority. And many of the troubling trends we're seeing are now very well established." The NSF said that it has launched a number of new initiatives designed to better position the United States "by enhancing international collaborations, improving education and establishing new partnerships between NSF-supported researchers and those in industry."

Once the patent trolls have sued all US tech companies out of existence, we're going to be left wondering just how it was that tech went the way of the auto industry.
Did they check under the cushions of the couch...I found my keys and wallet there once
Did they check under the cushions of the couch...I found my keys and wallet there once
Once the patent trolls have sued all US tech companies out of existence, we're going to be left wondering just how it was that tech went the way of the auto industry.
As long as the government keeps investing the same percentage of GDP you can't really blame them. Yeah, sure the global percentage will drop but that's only natural because of population growth and economic growth around the world and those factors are supposed to increase the number of high tech jobs worldwide so no country should just lose jobs, unless greedy corporations start outsourcing. The government can do something about this: force corporations that outsource to pay their foreign employees the same wage they would pay an emplopyee in the home country of the corporation, or at least the minimum wage of the home country. Globalization is supposed to pull poor countries up, not drag rich countries down.
I think you got social welfare programs and unregulated capitalism mixed up there.
Yes, manufacturing would come back, in fact it would boom, though to be fair you should also mention people would only make $1.50 an hour and get fired if they refuse to work more than 12 hours a day or operate dangerous equipment. Maybe you should visit a low-regulation country once and see how the average person lives there. Maybe take a tour of the Foxconn plant and see how their booming manufacturing sector operates, just be sure to wear a helmet when you walk outside.
P.S. do some research and discover how US tech companies have only increased their profits over the last 10 years. The next time you hear some slimy CEO talk about how regulations are strangling his business, requiring him to outsource jobs, ask him for a graph of company profits and CEO pay, over the last 10 years, I'll bet $100 with you that he'll either try to change the subject or literally leave the room. Oh and also try asking him how it's possible that his German and Japanese counterparts, who have to deal with more regulation, employee benefits and higher effective taxes, are not complaining and are in fact thriving.
Yes, those good old days when a more intelligent America elected such intellectual behemoths as Ronald Reagan and George Bush Jr... that must be it and it's got nothing at all to do with tech education having becoming unaffordable while at the same time corporations only want to hire people who are ok with living in slums.
Labor costs have not increased compared to inflation, in fact they have declined since the 1960s and 1970s, meanwhile the 1%'s share of the national income tripled while CEO pay has grown tenfold (the average is now 400 times a worker's pay) and naturally the economy has grown faster than workers wages, so compared to the average income per capita, worker wages, and thus labor costs, have gone down. But don't let facts get in the way of rhetoric...
There are no sports teams and 'bowl' games in Europe or Asia for school teams. They actually learn stuff there. We have to rethink making our educational institutions a training ground for professional sports teams. Heck, try to find a soccer player with a high school diploma in Europe.
Two way street. Blame the companies for squeezing out maximum profits and blame consumers for buying whats cheapest, not what's made in the USA.
It's not the just the companies. Consumers (at least in the USA) are satisfied with 'good enough' for the most part. I feel like I'm in a minority because I'm not satisfied with 'good enough.' Almost everyone I know buys whatever they can get the cheapest, not what will last the longest or is built well. It's all about the bottom dollar for america and this is how china and other countries end up with our money.
It's a vicious cycle: pay your employees less and (surprise, surprise) you'll find they have less spending power and therefore resort to buying cheap sh*t. You can then point to that and say labor costs need to be cut further to lower the price of the product, this leads to people having even less spending power, etc...
You either hurt your own wallet by buying more expensive stuff or you hurt the wallets of workers by buying cheap stuff (it's catch 22 when you are a worker yourself). Regulations, unions, and groups representing the interests of employers are all supposed to stop the vicious cycle under a representative government. Things go wrong when one group gets too much influence over that government (and no, usually that's not the unions).
The IRS expects to forego $100 billion of corporate taxes (that's tax evasion by large corporations only) every year, that's 2 million $50k or 4 million 25k wages (which would lower the unemployment rate by 1.3 and 2.6 percentage points respectively). How do we know this money isn't going to jobs? Wages are tax deductible so a corporation wouldn't have to evade taxes hire more employees.
Part of our problem is we have to many people getting degrees in the arts and "soft sciences" instead of in engineering and computer sciences where a good chunk of all the jobs are headed. There is actually a major lack of engineers in this country that is causing companies to have a hard time finding people to fill those spots.
Another problem with manufacturing in the US is that somehow we have made community college and tech schools seem like a bad choice or a choice for second rate people. Manufacturing requires a lot of skilled industrial engineers to oversee the operators but doesn't really require a full bachelor's degree. If we accepted tech school as a great choice for people who would otherwise not be able to graduate from a full four year university but still have good skills then we'd suddenly have a lot easier time find the labor force we need.
Its a multifaceted problem and simply blaming corrupt government or big business alone won't do anything about the labor force. Encourage high schoolers to go into engineering degrees or that tech school for an associates degree is a great choice instead of going with no degree at all!
Are you saying kids have become 35% less interested (pop. growth was 10%, tech job reduction was 28%) in tech fields in just 10 years?