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A Note on Unemployment Among Scientists and Engineers in Queensland
62
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
A NOTE ON UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS IN QUEENSLAND Stuart Macdonald University of Queensland
The Department of Economics at the University of Queensland is currently collaborating with the Commonwealth Department of Sciem;e in research into the supply of and demand for qualified scientists and engineers in Australia. Il has long been felt that such people play so crucial a role in the economy that their situation warrants regular observation1. In the coUrse of research a series of Queensland statistics was encountered that had avoided previous scrutiny. As the series is not published and has only recently become publicly available, this is perhaps not surprising. The Professional Employment Office in Brisbane holds monthly records of unemployed 'professionals' classified by the subject area of their favoured employment2. Consequently, the series enables not only the separation of the professionals from the mass of unemployed, but also allows scientists and engineers to be distinguished from other unemployed professionals, Some difficulty was encountered with the definition of the term 'professional', In fact, there is no really adequate definition and the Professional Employment Office adopts the pragmatic stance of classifying as professionals those people paid a salary rather than a wage. Younger professionals, however, would also be expected to possess tertiary educational qualifications and to have some expertise in a specific discipline, In most cases. qualifications and expertise will coincide and registration by subject area is easy. An unemployed physicist with a physics degree presents no problems: an unemployed teacher with a physics degree is less convenient and such a person would be registered as a teacher rather than as a physicist. The new series, which permits some breakdown of the unemployment figures by discipline, starts in September 1913, at which time it became compulsory for those professionals applying for unemployment benefit to register on the professional list. Whether professionals are as ready as others to register as unemployed is not known. As professional posts are filled in many other ways than via the Commonwealth Employment Service and as unemployed professionals may be in less need of unemployment benefit than most unemployed, it may be that they are under-represented on the register. As late 1973 marks the start of Australia's and Queensland's current serious unemployment problem,
63
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
the scries is of some potcntial value and worthy of a little investigation. This Note summarises some of the results of a preliminary examination. It is intended to promote discussion and to encourage assistance: it does not pretend to be definitive. Professional unemployment in Queensland is only a tiny proportion of total unemployment in the state. Between SePtember 1973 and December 1977, monthly figures vary from 1.3% of all registered unemployed to 3.0% of the total and suggest no obvious trends. Indeed, as Graphs 1 and 2 show, profess· ional unemployment, despite its small proportion of thc total, appears to be a reasonably accurate reflection of total unemployment. The graphs are purposely unadjusted for seasonal influences as it is hoped those very influences will reveal something of value. Both graphs show peaks at the beginning of each year when studenu leave educational institutions '0 enter the labour market. In both cases the first retarded peak was just emerging at the end of 1973, and the last - that forming towards the end of 1977 - was hIgher than ever before. In both cases mid·year troughs have become increasingly shallow each succeeding year, though this tendency is more pronounced for all unemployment than for professional unemployment. Graph 3 isolates scientists and engineers from the rest of the professional groupJ. Again, the seasonal peaks are evident. though the troughs have main· tained much of their depth and the peak just emerging in latc 197-7 shows no sign of containing the record numbers of unemployed that are already evident in Graphs 1 and 2. That point is made more forcefully in Graph 4, which looks at unemployed scientists and engineers as a proportion of all professionals un· employed. Quite clearly, scientists and engineers form a gradually diminishing part of the unemployed professional group4. But the most striking feature of Graph 4 is that it is so markedly different from the other three graphs. A con· siderable peak starts to emerge in late 1973 and a lesser one in late 1974. periods when this seasonal characteristic was only just beginning in the other graphs. By 1976 and 1977, when seasonality had become an increasingly distinctive char· acteristic of growing unemployment among both professional and all workers, it had become much less evident among scientists and engineers. If the seasonal peaks in the other unemployment graphs are largely ex· plained by the output of new workers from the educational institutions. it is not unreasonable to explain the two peaks in Graph 4 in the same way. That the young and newly·qualified should suffer a disproportionate share of the rigours of unemployment is only to be expected, but it is not immediately clear why newly-qualified scientists and engineers should have been so much more difficult to employ than their professional colleagues or the workforce as a whole during
64
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
tile early part of the recession, and yet relatively easier to place in more recent years. Other evidence was sought to throw more light on the problem.
TABLE 1 GRADUATES EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY FINDING A JOB 1%1
A
8
1972
1973
1976
1976
1977
Field of Degree
Survey
Survey·
Survey
Survey
Survey
Science & Engineering
44.6
42.7
50.0
46.4
54.7
Arts
35.2
22.9
27.7
22.8
25.3
Social Sciences
23.3
17.2
18.0
16.3
25.1
Education
l1.B
6.0
0.7
5.6
13.B
Medical & Paramedical
16.1
5.B
16.0
13.1
18.0
Total graduates
29.7
20.9
26.5
18.3
26.8
A-B
14.9
21.8
23.5
28.1
27.9
• excludIng Divinity, Music and Survtlylng graduates. Surveys were conducted about APril of eacll year. That ~, University of Queensland Counselling Services.
0' 1974 did not materialise.
Table 1 uses data from the annual questionnaire survey conducted by the Counselling Services of the University of Oueensland and shows the difficulty new graduate scientists and engineers from that university reported encountering jr, finding a job compared with the difficulty graduates from other disciplines remembered experiencing. It would seem til at young scientists and engineers had been having considerable trouble finding employment for some time and that between 1972 and 1976 their difficulties, relative to those of other graduates, were increasing rather than decreasing. This conflicts with the unemployment evidence, but a possible solution is suggested in Table 2. That table looks at graduates who have had to settle for employment which they consider inappropriate to their qualifications. The initial impression is that the numbers involved are surprisingly and depressingly large, but it may also be significant that the latest survey shows scientists and engineers to be less appropriately·employed than any other group. Young scientists and engineers may now be finding it so difficult to secure a job that very many are settling for considerably less than they hQped for and felt they deserved. In other words. those professionals with the earliest and most severe employment problems appear to have sought jobs
65
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
either outside their profession or at a lower level than they might have expected within their professionS. Work in hand suggests that there has recently been a marked change in the type of employment entered by new graduates in science and engineering away from prestigious scientific and technical work and towards more mundane and general employment. Consequently. by 1976, such people had improved their chance of employment 'Nhile the prospects for their fellow professionals and the workforce as a whole had deteriorated.
TABLE 2 GRADUATES WITH JOBS FOR WHICH THEY CONSIDER THEIR QUALIFICATIONS INAPPROPRIATE 1%1 Field of Degree
1973 Survey
1975 Survey
1976 Survey
1977 Survey
Science & Engineering
19.5
19.2
26.6
23.8
Arts
18.6
22.4
20.1
21.9
Social Sciences
20.8
26.1
21.3
18.2
Education
10.1
6.0
9.5
8.4
5.3
4.6
3.2
4.4
15.4
16.7
14.2
15.3
Medical & Paramedical Total graduates Source,
UnIversity of Queensland Counselling ServIces.
It is tempting, of course, to try to relate unemployment among scientists and engineers in Queensland to output of graduates in these fields from the University of Queensland - particularly when so much of the earlier unemploy· ment of these professionals is so clearly associated with the newly qualified6. In fact, the attempt demands unreasonable optimism as the University of Queensland is only one of several institutions producing professionals with qualifications. in science and engineering. Table 3 shows some hiatus in 1975 in the increase in absolute numbers of graduates with these qualifications and a slow proportional decline after 1976. It is possible that the absence of a seasonal unemployment peak from 1975 in Graph 4 is not unconnected with these movements, but no real conclusion is warranted.
66
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
TABLE 3
EXPECTED DATE OF COMPLETION OF PASS BACHELOR DEGREE COURSES, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978t
1979t
Science & Engineering
506
567
558
608
6'8
627
64'
% of completions in all subjects
19.7
20.4
20.6
21.4
21.1
20.6
19.4
t 1977 figures Source, Unlvenlly 01 Queensland Annual Stallsllcs.
Table 4 Is more informative. It is presented on the supposition that enrol· ment of new students for degrees in science and engineering may be discouraged by prevailing employment difficulties being experienced by those with Qualif· ications in these fields 7. Most evident is the sudden proportional decline in 1974 enrolments in science and engineering at the very time when unemployment of those from these disciplines accounted for almost half of all professional un· employment. As relative employment prospects for scientists and engineers have improved, so enrolments in these subjects as a proportion of all enrolments have shown some recovery. TABLE 4 NEW STUDENTS COMMENCING BACHELOR DEXREE COURSES, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
Science & Engine.ering % of all courses commenced by new students Scientists and Engineers unemployed as %of all un· employed professionals in January of each year 6
1973
1974 0
1975
1976
1977
1978
621
766
720
715
781
690'
21.4
15.6
19.1
17.0
17.0
20.6"
n.a.
46.6
36.5
33.9
33.7
24.4t
sludents may enrol In more than one course from 1974 the deflnillon of new student Chan9ed. PreviouslY any nudent WhO ned been enrolled for any course II any unlversllY wu not regarded II 'new'. • provisIonal figure I December 1977 Source: Unlvenlty of Queensland Annual Slatlstlcs1 Mr G.R. Moynlhiln, StallstlCs Ofllcer, UnIversity of Queensland; Prolenlonill Employment Office, BrIsbane. o
67
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
Table 4 illustrates what might be Interpreted as a reaction to the unfavour. able employment situation for newly·qualified scientists and engineers at a time when their prospects looked distinctly less promising than those of other young professionals. Since 1973 and 1974. when scientists and engineers were almost a majority among unemployed professionals, other groups of professionals have had to cope with diminishing employment prospects. Presumably the teachers would comprise one of these professional groups. As the fortunes of others have grown less attractive, so the lot of prospective scientists and er,gineers has appeared relatively less gloomy. In fact, there was even some small improvement in 1977 in the absolute numbers of scientists and engineers unemployed. The evidence has produced one main problem that demands an answer. Why should newly-qualified scientists and engineers have had particular difficulty securing employment at the very beginning of a period of growing general un· employment? Much more research is needed before an answer can be given with any assurance. It may be that these people had been experiencing chronic em· ployment difficulties long before 1973 and that current high general unemployment is merely helping to mask their specific troubles 8. In Queensland, the collapse of the mining boom in the late sixties may have been particularly significant. On the other hand, it is commonly argued that research and develop· ment activities are among the first to suffer when recession threatens 9 . In Australia, over forty per cent of newly·employed graduates in engineering and applied science are engaged in just this sort of activity 10. Inexperienced manpower with a very specific educational orientation may well have suggested an obvious economy for employers. It is estimated that the number of research staff employed in companies with research and development capacity in Australia declined by 40% between 1974 and 1976 11 . Such an answer fits the problem; it is not necessarily the correct or the only answer. However, if it is correct, ther, it makes available to the economist what may be an extraordinarily sensitive indicator of impending high general un· employment. There can be little doubt that such warning would be of some value 12. More important though is the implication that newly-qualified scientific and engineering manpower is the least valued of professional manpower reo sources and that which the market regards as being most readily expendible.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Lamberton, O.M., Science. TechnologYI and the Australian Economy, Tudor Press, Sydney, 1970. pp. 67·82.
68
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
2.
I am most grateful to Mr Kevin Daley and Mrs Sally Cross of the Professional Employment Office for giving access to their statistics and for helping to interpret them.
3.
The categories chosen to encomPiiss professional scientists and engineers are neither comprehensive nor utterly satisfactory as difficulties with classification, definition and consistency in the series prohibit real accur· acy. They are chemists, earth scientists, physical scientists, agricultural scientists, life scientists, architects and town planners, surveyors, mathematicians, statistiCians, systems analysts and engineers of all sorts with the exception of draughtsmen.
4.
Marked cyclical fluctuations in the labour market for engineers in the United States have been noted by Freeman, R.B., 'A Cobweb Model of the Supply and Starting Salary of New Engineers', Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 29, 2, Jan. 1976, pp. 236-48.
5.
See Universities Commission, Sixth Report, May 1976, p. 69; and University of Melbourne Appointments Board, Annual Report, 1977, pp. 2, 11, 18·23.
6.
In the university context the definition of science and engineering is necessarily narrower than that used earlier in the PEa statistics. It includes agricultural, forestry and earth scierlliSts, architects and town planners, surveyors and all types of engineers, and scientists in general.
7.
Research in the United States finds very close relation between employment prospects for engineers and first-year college enrolments. Freeman, R.B., The Over-Educated American, Academic Press, New York, 1976, pp. 112-116. British research suggests the relation is not quite so simple. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Education, Engineers
and Manufacturing Industry, 1977.
8.
The submission of the Institution of Engineers, Australia made in September 1977 to the Williams' Committee of Inquiry into Education and Train· ing suggests there was no longer a 'net deficiency of engineers' after 1971.
9.
E.G. see Freeman, 'A Cobweb Model of the Supply and Starting Salary of New Engineers', op.cit., pp. 239-41.
10.
For scientists the figure is much lower unless the routine analysis category is included. Graduate Careers Council of Australia, First Destinations of University Graduates, annual.
11.
Pockley, P., 'When Two Academies Meet', Nature, 268, 21 July 1977, pp.187·8.
12.
Department of Labour, Report of Australian Interdepartmental Mission to Study Overseas Manpower and Industry Policies and Programmes, A.G.P.S., March 1974, p. 143.
69
Economic Analysis and Policy
GAAPH GAAPH GAAPH GRAPH
1 2 3 4
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
AU unemployed Unemployed professionals Unemployed profenion.l 5Cientists and engineers Unemployed prolenion.1 5Clentisu .nd engineers profeuionals
.. "
of unemployed
Source for Graphs 1-4: Professional Employment Office, Commonwealth Service, Brisbane. (no.) GrOlPh 1 1973
1914
sept. Oct. NOv. Oec,
6,821 6,223 1,303 13,040
Jon. Feb. March April
22,226 18,283 14,383 11,101 9,619 9,531 12,137 15.801 11,184 22,599 21,840 40,935
M" June
JuiV Aug. Sepl. Ocl. Nov. Dec. 1915
Jan, Feb. MuCh APril
M"
'"~ JuiV Aug, Slpt, OCI. NOv. oec. 1916
JOIn. Feb. March April
M"
June JuiV Aug. Sept. Oct. NOv. oec. 1977
JOIn. Feb. Mard, April
M" June JulV Aug. Sept. Ocl. NOv. 00<.
(no. I G •• ph 2
m 138
'" '" '83
'".55 '" .82 In 239
220 290 OS'
'88 89'
(no.) GraPh 3 Engineers Scientists 22 '0
""
38
" ""
'0 '0
10'
21
88
" "
29 16 22 '0 89 '0
"
Sf
" ""
29
m
.,""
m
153
..... '" .. ,.. ,,, '"
50,463 49,119 45,483 43,167 38,426 31,491 38,491 39,010 36,111 36;092 38,266 49,902
1,026 1,025 ."
55,050 50,141 46,234 43,064 39,404 38,586 38,346 31,525 36,800 36,446 39,918 49,202
1,202 1,349 1,289 1,184 1.164
.
961
15'
55,141 54,697 51,195 49,484 48,474 48,582 49,819 41,923 41,112 48,143 51,618 65,116
1,392 1,423 1,218 1,013 1,021
106
15.
'0
'" '".,
111
'SO'
129 88
565
85
88
68 .0 '0'
""
'0'
1,011
'" 88'
"
m
'" '" .,
110 19' ••0 .88
220
'01
'" m .85
."
1,216
'"
."
89
•••
88' 821 89.
1,011 1,075 1,000 1,088 1,183 1,526
81
138
239
m
16.
10'
."
130 12.
'" 188 '"
120 131
".
.53 122
.28 131
'18 .38 '6'
..,
220
'"
110 160
"' '" '" ." 106 188 188
EmploYment (no.) Graph 4 30,4 31.2 38.1 45.0 46.6 46,4 40.5 35.5 37,4 25.4 26.4 25.1 30.0 29.5 26.2 32,9 36.5 36.1 35.6 31.2 29.6 21.8 26.4 22.4 24.1 26.5 26.1 32.0 33.9 32.5 31.8 32.0 32.6 32.2 32.8 32.3 33.4 29.5 30.1 32.4 33.7 32.0 29.1 31.4 29.7 26,2 25.2 25.1 24.5 25.5 22.7 24.4
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Economic Analysis and Policy
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Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
A NOTE ON UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS IN QUEENSLAND Stuart Macdonald University of Queensland
The Department of Economics at the University of Queensland is currently collaborating with the Commonwealth Department of Sciem;e in research into the supply of and demand for qualified scientists and engineers in Australia. Il has long been felt that such people play so crucial a role in the economy that their situation warrants regular observation1. In the coUrse of research a series of Queensland statistics was encountered that had avoided previous scrutiny. As the series is not published and has only recently become publicly available, this is perhaps not surprising. The Professional Employment Office in Brisbane holds monthly records of unemployed 'professionals' classified by the subject area of their favoured employment2. Consequently, the series enables not only the separation of the professionals from the mass of unemployed, but also allows scientists and engineers to be distinguished from other unemployed professionals, Some difficulty was encountered with the definition of the term 'professional', In fact, there is no really adequate definition and the Professional Employment Office adopts the pragmatic stance of classifying as professionals those people paid a salary rather than a wage. Younger professionals, however, would also be expected to possess tertiary educational qualifications and to have some expertise in a specific discipline, In most cases. qualifications and expertise will coincide and registration by subject area is easy. An unemployed physicist with a physics degree presents no problems: an unemployed teacher with a physics degree is less convenient and such a person would be registered as a teacher rather than as a physicist. The new series, which permits some breakdown of the unemployment figures by discipline, starts in September 1913, at which time it became compulsory for those professionals applying for unemployment benefit to register on the professional list. Whether professionals are as ready as others to register as unemployed is not known. As professional posts are filled in many other ways than via the Commonwealth Employment Service and as unemployed professionals may be in less need of unemployment benefit than most unemployed, it may be that they are under-represented on the register. As late 1973 marks the start of Australia's and Queensland's current serious unemployment problem,
63
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
the scries is of some potcntial value and worthy of a little investigation. This Note summarises some of the results of a preliminary examination. It is intended to promote discussion and to encourage assistance: it does not pretend to be definitive. Professional unemployment in Queensland is only a tiny proportion of total unemployment in the state. Between SePtember 1973 and December 1977, monthly figures vary from 1.3% of all registered unemployed to 3.0% of the total and suggest no obvious trends. Indeed, as Graphs 1 and 2 show, profess· ional unemployment, despite its small proportion of thc total, appears to be a reasonably accurate reflection of total unemployment. The graphs are purposely unadjusted for seasonal influences as it is hoped those very influences will reveal something of value. Both graphs show peaks at the beginning of each year when studenu leave educational institutions '0 enter the labour market. In both cases the first retarded peak was just emerging at the end of 1973, and the last - that forming towards the end of 1977 - was hIgher than ever before. In both cases mid·year troughs have become increasingly shallow each succeeding year, though this tendency is more pronounced for all unemployment than for professional unemployment. Graph 3 isolates scientists and engineers from the rest of the professional groupJ. Again, the seasonal peaks are evident. though the troughs have main· tained much of their depth and the peak just emerging in latc 197-7 shows no sign of containing the record numbers of unemployed that are already evident in Graphs 1 and 2. That point is made more forcefully in Graph 4, which looks at unemployed scientists and engineers as a proportion of all professionals un· employed. Quite clearly, scientists and engineers form a gradually diminishing part of the unemployed professional group4. But the most striking feature of Graph 4 is that it is so markedly different from the other three graphs. A con· siderable peak starts to emerge in late 1973 and a lesser one in late 1974. periods when this seasonal characteristic was only just beginning in the other graphs. By 1976 and 1977, when seasonality had become an increasingly distinctive char· acteristic of growing unemployment among both professional and all workers, it had become much less evident among scientists and engineers. If the seasonal peaks in the other unemployment graphs are largely ex· plained by the output of new workers from the educational institutions. it is not unreasonable to explain the two peaks in Graph 4 in the same way. That the young and newly·qualified should suffer a disproportionate share of the rigours of unemployment is only to be expected, but it is not immediately clear why newly-qualified scientists and engineers should have been so much more difficult to employ than their professional colleagues or the workforce as a whole during
64
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
tile early part of the recession, and yet relatively easier to place in more recent years. Other evidence was sought to throw more light on the problem.
TABLE 1 GRADUATES EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY FINDING A JOB 1%1
A
8
1972
1973
1976
1976
1977
Field of Degree
Survey
Survey·
Survey
Survey
Survey
Science & Engineering
44.6
42.7
50.0
46.4
54.7
Arts
35.2
22.9
27.7
22.8
25.3
Social Sciences
23.3
17.2
18.0
16.3
25.1
Education
l1.B
6.0
0.7
5.6
13.B
Medical & Paramedical
16.1
5.B
16.0
13.1
18.0
Total graduates
29.7
20.9
26.5
18.3
26.8
A-B
14.9
21.8
23.5
28.1
27.9
• excludIng Divinity, Music and Survtlylng graduates. Surveys were conducted about APril of eacll year. That ~, University of Queensland Counselling Services.
0' 1974 did not materialise.
Table 1 uses data from the annual questionnaire survey conducted by the Counselling Services of the University of Oueensland and shows the difficulty new graduate scientists and engineers from that university reported encountering jr, finding a job compared with the difficulty graduates from other disciplines remembered experiencing. It would seem til at young scientists and engineers had been having considerable trouble finding employment for some time and that between 1972 and 1976 their difficulties, relative to those of other graduates, were increasing rather than decreasing. This conflicts with the unemployment evidence, but a possible solution is suggested in Table 2. That table looks at graduates who have had to settle for employment which they consider inappropriate to their qualifications. The initial impression is that the numbers involved are surprisingly and depressingly large, but it may also be significant that the latest survey shows scientists and engineers to be less appropriately·employed than any other group. Young scientists and engineers may now be finding it so difficult to secure a job that very many are settling for considerably less than they hQped for and felt they deserved. In other words. those professionals with the earliest and most severe employment problems appear to have sought jobs
65
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
either outside their profession or at a lower level than they might have expected within their professionS. Work in hand suggests that there has recently been a marked change in the type of employment entered by new graduates in science and engineering away from prestigious scientific and technical work and towards more mundane and general employment. Consequently. by 1976, such people had improved their chance of employment 'Nhile the prospects for their fellow professionals and the workforce as a whole had deteriorated.
TABLE 2 GRADUATES WITH JOBS FOR WHICH THEY CONSIDER THEIR QUALIFICATIONS INAPPROPRIATE 1%1 Field of Degree
1973 Survey
1975 Survey
1976 Survey
1977 Survey
Science & Engineering
19.5
19.2
26.6
23.8
Arts
18.6
22.4
20.1
21.9
Social Sciences
20.8
26.1
21.3
18.2
Education
10.1
6.0
9.5
8.4
5.3
4.6
3.2
4.4
15.4
16.7
14.2
15.3
Medical & Paramedical Total graduates Source,
UnIversity of Queensland Counselling ServIces.
It is tempting, of course, to try to relate unemployment among scientists and engineers in Queensland to output of graduates in these fields from the University of Queensland - particularly when so much of the earlier unemploy· ment of these professionals is so clearly associated with the newly qualified6. In fact, the attempt demands unreasonable optimism as the University of Queensland is only one of several institutions producing professionals with qualifications. in science and engineering. Table 3 shows some hiatus in 1975 in the increase in absolute numbers of graduates with these qualifications and a slow proportional decline after 1976. It is possible that the absence of a seasonal unemployment peak from 1975 in Graph 4 is not unconnected with these movements, but no real conclusion is warranted.
66
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
TABLE 3
EXPECTED DATE OF COMPLETION OF PASS BACHELOR DEGREE COURSES, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978t
1979t
Science & Engineering
506
567
558
608
6'8
627
64'
% of completions in all subjects
19.7
20.4
20.6
21.4
21.1
20.6
19.4
t 1977 figures Source, Unlvenlly 01 Queensland Annual Stallsllcs.
Table 4 Is more informative. It is presented on the supposition that enrol· ment of new students for degrees in science and engineering may be discouraged by prevailing employment difficulties being experienced by those with Qualif· ications in these fields 7. Most evident is the sudden proportional decline in 1974 enrolments in science and engineering at the very time when unemployment of those from these disciplines accounted for almost half of all professional un· employment. As relative employment prospects for scientists and engineers have improved, so enrolments in these subjects as a proportion of all enrolments have shown some recovery. TABLE 4 NEW STUDENTS COMMENCING BACHELOR DEXREE COURSES, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
Science & Engine.ering % of all courses commenced by new students Scientists and Engineers unemployed as %of all un· employed professionals in January of each year 6
1973
1974 0
1975
1976
1977
1978
621
766
720
715
781
690'
21.4
15.6
19.1
17.0
17.0
20.6"
n.a.
46.6
36.5
33.9
33.7
24.4t
sludents may enrol In more than one course from 1974 the deflnillon of new student Chan9ed. PreviouslY any nudent WhO ned been enrolled for any course II any unlversllY wu not regarded II 'new'. • provisIonal figure I December 1977 Source: Unlvenlty of Queensland Annual Slatlstlcs1 Mr G.R. Moynlhiln, StallstlCs Ofllcer, UnIversity of Queensland; Prolenlonill Employment Office, BrIsbane. o
67
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
Table 4 illustrates what might be Interpreted as a reaction to the unfavour. able employment situation for newly·qualified scientists and engineers at a time when their prospects looked distinctly less promising than those of other young professionals. Since 1973 and 1974. when scientists and engineers were almost a majority among unemployed professionals, other groups of professionals have had to cope with diminishing employment prospects. Presumably the teachers would comprise one of these professional groups. As the fortunes of others have grown less attractive, so the lot of prospective scientists and er,gineers has appeared relatively less gloomy. In fact, there was even some small improvement in 1977 in the absolute numbers of scientists and engineers unemployed. The evidence has produced one main problem that demands an answer. Why should newly-qualified scientists and engineers have had particular difficulty securing employment at the very beginning of a period of growing general un· employment? Much more research is needed before an answer can be given with any assurance. It may be that these people had been experiencing chronic em· ployment difficulties long before 1973 and that current high general unemployment is merely helping to mask their specific troubles 8. In Queensland, the collapse of the mining boom in the late sixties may have been particularly significant. On the other hand, it is commonly argued that research and develop· ment activities are among the first to suffer when recession threatens 9 . In Australia, over forty per cent of newly·employed graduates in engineering and applied science are engaged in just this sort of activity 10. Inexperienced manpower with a very specific educational orientation may well have suggested an obvious economy for employers. It is estimated that the number of research staff employed in companies with research and development capacity in Australia declined by 40% between 1974 and 1976 11 . Such an answer fits the problem; it is not necessarily the correct or the only answer. However, if it is correct, ther, it makes available to the economist what may be an extraordinarily sensitive indicator of impending high general un· employment. There can be little doubt that such warning would be of some value 12. More important though is the implication that newly-qualified scientific and engineering manpower is the least valued of professional manpower reo sources and that which the market regards as being most readily expendible.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Lamberton, O.M., Science. TechnologYI and the Australian Economy, Tudor Press, Sydney, 1970. pp. 67·82.
68
Economic Analysis and Policy
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
2.
I am most grateful to Mr Kevin Daley and Mrs Sally Cross of the Professional Employment Office for giving access to their statistics and for helping to interpret them.
3.
The categories chosen to encomPiiss professional scientists and engineers are neither comprehensive nor utterly satisfactory as difficulties with classification, definition and consistency in the series prohibit real accur· acy. They are chemists, earth scientists, physical scientists, agricultural scientists, life scientists, architects and town planners, surveyors, mathematicians, statistiCians, systems analysts and engineers of all sorts with the exception of draughtsmen.
4.
Marked cyclical fluctuations in the labour market for engineers in the United States have been noted by Freeman, R.B., 'A Cobweb Model of the Supply and Starting Salary of New Engineers', Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 29, 2, Jan. 1976, pp. 236-48.
5.
See Universities Commission, Sixth Report, May 1976, p. 69; and University of Melbourne Appointments Board, Annual Report, 1977, pp. 2, 11, 18·23.
6.
In the university context the definition of science and engineering is necessarily narrower than that used earlier in the PEa statistics. It includes agricultural, forestry and earth scierlliSts, architects and town planners, surveyors and all types of engineers, and scientists in general.
7.
Research in the United States finds very close relation between employment prospects for engineers and first-year college enrolments. Freeman, R.B., The Over-Educated American, Academic Press, New York, 1976, pp. 112-116. British research suggests the relation is not quite so simple. British Association for the Advancement of Science, Education, Engineers
and Manufacturing Industry, 1977.
8.
The submission of the Institution of Engineers, Australia made in September 1977 to the Williams' Committee of Inquiry into Education and Train· ing suggests there was no longer a 'net deficiency of engineers' after 1971.
9.
E.G. see Freeman, 'A Cobweb Model of the Supply and Starting Salary of New Engineers', op.cit., pp. 239-41.
10.
For scientists the figure is much lower unless the routine analysis category is included. Graduate Careers Council of Australia, First Destinations of University Graduates, annual.
11.
Pockley, P., 'When Two Academies Meet', Nature, 268, 21 July 1977, pp.187·8.
12.
Department of Labour, Report of Australian Interdepartmental Mission to Study Overseas Manpower and Industry Policies and Programmes, A.G.P.S., March 1974, p. 143.
69
Economic Analysis and Policy
GAAPH GAAPH GAAPH GRAPH
1 2 3 4
Vol. 08 No. 02, September 1978
AU unemployed Unemployed professionals Unemployed profenion.l 5Cientists and engineers Unemployed prolenion.1 5Clentisu .nd engineers profeuionals
.. "
of unemployed
Source for Graphs 1-4: Professional Employment Office, Commonwealth Service, Brisbane. (no.) GrOlPh 1 1973
1914
sept. Oct. NOv. Oec,
6,821 6,223 1,303 13,040
Jon. Feb. March April
22,226 18,283 14,383 11,101 9,619 9,531 12,137 15.801 11,184 22,599 21,840 40,935
M" June
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Jan, Feb. MuCh APril
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'"~ JuiV Aug, Slpt, OCI. NOv. oec. 1916
JOIn. Feb. March April
M"
June JuiV Aug. Sept. Oct. NOv. oec. 1977
JOIn. Feb. Mard, April
M" June JulV Aug. Sept. Ocl. NOv. 00<.
(no. I G •• ph 2
m 138
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220 290 OS'
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1,026 1,025 ."
55,050 50,141 46,234 43,064 39,404 38,586 38,346 31,525 36,800 36,446 39,918 49,202
1,202 1,349 1,289 1,184 1.164
.
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15'
55,141 54,697 51,195 49,484 48,474 48,582 49,819 41,923 41,112 48,143 51,618 65,116
1,392 1,423 1,218 1,013 1,021
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EmploYment (no.) Graph 4 30,4 31.2 38.1 45.0 46.6 46,4 40.5 35.5 37,4 25.4 26.4 25.1 30.0 29.5 26.2 32,9 36.5 36.1 35.6 31.2 29.6 21.8 26.4 22.4 24.1 26.5 26.1 32.0 33.9 32.5 31.8 32.0 32.6 32.2 32.8 32.3 33.4 29.5 30.1 32.4 33.7 32.0 29.1 31.4 29.7 26,2 25.2 25.1 24.5 25.5 22.7 24.4
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