1. Growth in Master’s Education and the Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Eleanor L. Babco Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology October 24-26, 2003

2. In 2002, Master’s Degrees Were: Four out of five Post-baccalaureate Degrees Granted. Only one out of five were in a S&E Field Only 7% were in the Natural Sciences About one half were in two fields – education and business Health Sciences were the third largest degree field after doubling during the 1990s.

3. During the Decade of the 1990s: Master’s Degrees … Increased by nearly 35%, overall. Women’s share grew 46% and by 2002 women earned 58% of all master’s degrees and 43% of S&E degrees. Grew by 33% for U.S. citizens & permanent residents, and 14% in S&E. More than doubled for URMs (26,666 to 56,207) in all fields and increased 93% in S&E - from 4,026 to 7,774.

4. Employment of Master’s Level S&Es Of the 9 million employed S&Es in 1999 – 1.5 million had a master’s degree as their highest degree. Of those 1.5 million, 56% worked in industry, 29% in academe, and the remainder in government & other sectors.

5. Professional Master’s Degrees

6. Professional Science Master’s Degree as of October 13, 2003 … Initiated in 1997 – 97 separate tracks in 45 universities. Data reported from 50 programs – 895 enrollments. Highest enrollments in bioinformatics, biology, biotechnology. Two out of five are women; one in four a foreign national, out in six attended part-time, and one in ten are U.S. minorities. 230 graduates (109 in 2001 and 121 in 2003)

7. Preliminary Results from Initial Employment Survey of PSM Grads Three-quarters of PSM grads came with BS, 12% had an MS and 3% a PhD. More than half of PSM grads were supported by fellowship/scholarship, almost half had university employment (TA), over a third took loans, and another third self-financed their PSM degree.

8. Preliminary Results from Initial Employment Survey of PSM Grads PSM Grads considered their degree more competitive than a BS + 2 Yrs work experience and as competitive as grads with traditional master’s degree. Three out of five PSM grads work in industry. One in three aspires long-term to a career in research, while a quarter aspire to senior management. Internships, independent research projects and academic course work judged very useful.

9. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Recession Effects: – After U.S. jobs in core IT occupations tripled between 1983 and 2000 (710,000 to 2,498,000), in 2001 and 2002, 150,000 IT jobs lost – almost 2/3s in programming. – Unemployment in core IT professions rose from 1.9% in 2000 to 3.6% in 2001 to 4.3% in 2002 and an average of 6.9% for the first two quarters of 2003.

10. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Changes in Education – Previously those employed in IT jobs were trained for other professions. – UG students in computer science jumped 40% in 1995-96, leading to record number of new degrees in IT disciplines through 2002, says CRA. – NCES confirms major increases in IT degrees; now market poor.

11. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Immigration Trends – Foreign-born core IT workers doubled from 1/10 of labor force in 1994 to over 1/5 in 2001. – Immigrants in IT workforce – younger and better educated than their native counterparts. In 2002, 53.3% of immigrants with core IT jobs were under age 35 – 41% of natives were. – More than two of five (41.1%) of immigrants had graduate degrees, compared to 16.2% of natives.

12. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Foreign participation in IT labor markets between 1994 and 2002 facilitated by H-1B legislation. The use of L visas more than tripled between late 1980s and 2002.

13. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Outsourcing Trends – Outsourcing has grown from under $300 m in 1995 to over $1.2 billion in 2001. – 3.3 million white-collar jobs, worth $136 billion in U.S. wages, will be shifted elsewhere by 2015. This includes 473,000 IT positions. – 10% of all U.S. professional IT service jobs will be transferred overseas by the end of 2004.

14. Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers Projected Changes in Demand – 2001 BLS Data bullish on IT career prospects, as are assessments of demand by Rand Corporation and National Science Board. – Prominent high-tech workers doubt the U.S., can be cost-competitive source of labor in global employment market.