Although jobs in the STEM field are one of the most sought after next to medical fields, there do not seem to be enough STEM graduates filling the job market. Proponents such as David Langdon, a senior economist in the Office of the Chief Economist within the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration, argues that STEM jobs should be desirable by people across the world because of the higher wages, regardless of the work and effort put towards getting the degree. However, according to Carnevele, a research professor at Georgetown University, et. al., “…rising wage premiums demonstrate that our supply of workers with core STEM competencies is strained” showing that we need more STEM workers because many capable STEM students divert their focus to medical or other professional jobs early in their college career resulting in the loss of qualified workers in the STEM field (74). This lack of STEM workers in the US is a problem that impacts the nation’s competitiveness with other ones such as India and China. Heather B. Gonzalez, a specialist in Science and Technology Policy, and Jeffrey J. Kuenzi, a specialist in Education Policy state that “Of the 5 million first university degrees awarded globally in S&E in 2008, students in China earned about 23%, European Union students earned about 19%, and U.S. students earned about 10%.” (14) …show more content…
use to employ foreign workers in STEM occupations. According to Pia Orrenius, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and American Enterprise Institute et. al., as well as Madeline Zavodny, a professor of economics at Agnes Scott College, STEM jobs in the United States provides many benefits that draw foreign workers to the States. Many believe this proposal would be beneficial due to an influx of foreign workers using H-1B visas which would fix the STEM labor shortage(6; 3). Visa reform, according to Zavodny, may be one of the crucial course of actions to boost the economy and fill the empty STEM jobs to help America keep its competitive edge (3). The auctioning of H-1B visas would not only help the labor supply shortage but it would boost the economy, according to Orrenius, opposed to the current system where the visas themselves do not provide any economic