International Geoscience Workforce Trends: More Challenges for Federal Agencies
Abstract
Concern about the decreasing number of students entering undergraduate geoscience programs has been chronic and, at times, acute over the past three decades. Despite dwindling populations of undergraduate majors, graduate programs have remained relatively robust, bolstered by international students. With Increasing competition for graduate students by universities in Europe, Japan, Australia, and some developing countries, and with procedural challenges faced by international students seeking entry into the United States and its universities, this supply source is threatened. For corporations operating on a global scale, the opportunity to employ students from and trained in the regions in which they operate is generally a plus. For U.S. universities that have traditionally supplied this workforce, the changing situation poses challenges, but also opportunities for creative international partnerships. Federal government science agencies face more challenges than opportunities in meeting workforce needs under both present and changing education conditions. Restrictions on hiring non-U.S. citizens into the permanent workforce have been a long-standing issue for federal agencies. Exceptions are granted only where they can document the absence of eligible U.S.-citizen candidates. The U.S. Geological Survey has been successful in doing this in its Mendenhall Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program, but there has been no solution to the broader limitation. Under current and forecast workforce recruitment conditions, creativity, such as that evidenced by the Mendenhall program,will be necessary if federal agencies are to draw from the increasingly international geoscience talent pool. With fewer U.S. citizens in U.S. geoscience graduate programs and a growing number of advanced-degreed scientists coming from universities outside the U.S., the need for changes in federal hiring policies is heightened. The near-term liklihood of this is low and combined with the decline in appeal of the U.S. as a friendly workplace for international scientists, government agencies, universities, and the private sector face geoscience workforce challenges that will continue to grow.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005AGUFMED31E..04G
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education