CRA Bulletin

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that in 2007, the earnings gap between men and women was narrower among several professional-level IT occupations than found in the overall workforce.

Among all occupations, women earned about 80% of what men were paid. Within the (high paying) larger groupings that the professional-level IT professions fall, women in IT tended to have median weekly earnings that were closer to men’s.

For more information, visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey page, http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm#annual

A recent NSF InfoBrief provides a snapshot of 2003, 2004 and 2005 bachelor’s and master’s degree recipients in April 2006. Compared to several other majors, computer and information sciences (CS) graduates were doing quite well.

CS graduates were most likely to be employed in business and industry and to be working full-time. At the bachelor’s level, 82% of CS majors were employed in business and industry and 91% of them (along with engineering majors) had full-time jobs. At the master’s level, 76% worked in business/industry and 93% had full-time jobs.

CS graduates also earned high salaries. CS tied for second with health majors for the highest median salary at the bachelor’s level ($45,000) and tied for first with engineering at the master’s level ($65,000). This compared to median salaries among all science, engineering and health fields of $39,000 at the bachelor’s level and $56,000 at the master’s level.

National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, An Overview of Science, Engineering, and Health Graduates: 2006, Arlington, VA (NSF 08-304)

CRA’s Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering departments in North America has been conducted annually since 1974. Results from the most recent survey will be provided to participants and CRA members this month. They will be published on CRA’s website (www.cra.org/statistics/) and in Computing Research News in May. Due to widespread interest, CRA releases data on undergraduate degrees early.

This article reports on CS bachelor’s degree enrollments and production among Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States since the late 1990s. Data are reported in both total numbers and medians per department since the latter helps limit the effect of variants in response rates. Results from the Taulbee Survey should be compared with data produced by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which surveys all institutions that grant CS degrees (where Taulbee is a survey of the doctorate-granting departments only).

According to HERI/UCLA, the percentage of incoming undergraduates among all degree-granting institutions who indicated they would major in CS declined by 70 percent between fall 2000 and 2005.[See a previous post] Unsurprisingly, the number of students who declared their major in CS among the Ph.D.-granting departments surveyed by CRA also fell (Figure 1). After seven years of declines, the number of new CS majors in fall 2007 was half of what it was in fall 2000 (15,958 versus 7,915). Nevertheless, the number of new majors was flat in 2006 and slightly increased in 2007. This might indicate that interest is stabilizing.

The decrease in new majors has meant that the number of students enrolled in CS has fallen for several years (Figure 2). Between 2005/2006 and 2006/2007, enrollments went down 18 percent to 28,675. Overall, enrollments dropped 49 percent from their height in 2001/2002, while the median number of students enrolled in each department fell 53 percent since 2000/2001.

These declines have had a significant impact on degree production. Following several years of increases, the total number of bachelor’s degrees granted by PhD-granting CS departments fell 43 percent to 8,021 between 2003/2004 and 2006/2007 (Figure 3). The median number of degrees granted per department declined 39 percent (to 42). The sustained drop in total enrollments and student interest in CS as a major suggests that degree production numbers will continue to drop in the next few years.

It is important to note that a steep drop in degree production among CS departments has happened before. According to NSF, between 1980 and 1986 undergraduate CS production nearly quadrupled to more than 42,000 degrees. This period was followed by a swift decline and leveling off during the 1990s, with several years in which the number of degrees granted hovered around 25,000. During the late 1990s, CS degree production again surged to more than 57,000 in 2004. In light of the economic downturn and slow job growth during the early 2000s, the current decline in CS degree production was foreseeable.

Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) aims to understand the intrinsic capabilities and limitations of efficient computation. This subfield of computer science has a record of producing unexpected discoveries of high impact, such as public-key cryptography and quantum computation; and of raising deep scientific questions, such as the P vs. NP question.

On May 17, 2008, the TCS community will engage in a CCC-sponsored “visioning” workshop at the University of Washington in Seattle. The goals of the visioning workshop will be to:

Identify broad research themes within theoretical computer science (TCS) that have potential for a major impact in the future,

Distill these research directions into compelling “nuggets” that can quickly convey their importance to a layperson.

The nuggets produced in the workshop will serve to highlight the importance of sustained support for long-term, fundamental computing research, and to inspire the TCS community in its future efforts.

All researchers interested in theoretical computer science are encouraged to provide input for the visioning process. Since space is limited, those interested in attending should apply as soon as possible. (Ideas are welcome even from those who cannot attend.) More information is available at the workshop’s website http://theorymatters.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Visioning

Organizing Committee: Bernard Chazelle (Princeton), Anna Karlin (U. Washington), Richard Ladner (U. Washington), Dick Lipton (Georgia Tech), Salil Vadhan (Harvard).

About the Computing Community Consortium (CCC, www.cra.org/ccc):

The National Science Foundation created the Computing Community Consortium with the goal of stimulating the computing research community to imagine, articulate, and pursue more audacious research visions—visions that will capture the imagination and change the world. The CCC is funded through an NSF award to the Computing Research Association; the CCC’s Council operates as a committee of CRA.

The National Academy of Engineering has released its list of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering for the 21st century.

According to the report’s press release:

The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish – sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive.

The 14 challenges are:

Make solar energy affordable

Provide energy from fusion

Develop carbon sequestration methods

Manage the nitrogen cycle

Provide access to clean water

Restore and improve urban infrastructure

Advance health informatics

Engineer better medicines

Reverse-engineer the brain

Prevent nuclear terror

Secure cyberspace

Enhance virtual reality

Advance personalized learning

Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Further information about the challenges can be found at: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

You may also be interested in the results of CRA’s own grand challenges conferences, http://www.cra.org/grand.challenges/, as well as CRA’s current involvement with the Computing Community Consortium, www.cra.org/ccc. About CCC:

What are the next big computing ideas, the ones that will define the future of computing, galvanize the very best students, and catalyze research investment and public support? The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) seeks to mobilize the computing research community to answer these questions by identifying major research opportunities for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation in this exciting process.

(See earlier posts on occupational employment projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for professional-level IT positions: overall estimates and by detailed occupation).

Although each BLS employment projection report covers a slightly different period, it is interesting to see how the forecasts have changed over time. The 2006-2016 projections for the IT workforce are lower both in terms of numbers and percent growth than those made in the report for 2004-2014. In the 2004-2014 report, BLS estimated that 1.04 million new jobs would be created– a 30.5 percent growth rate. In comparison, the report for 2006-2016 forecasts a lower growth rate in new jobs (24.1 percent) and fewer new jobs (854,000, or 18 percent lower than for 2004-2014). However, it does project more total job openings (1.64 million, or 10 percent more than in the 2004-2014 report).

It would be easy to see the series of lowered growth projections as signs of trouble within the IT workforce. But there are two other factors to consider: (1) in the 2006-2016 report, expectations for growth lowered also for the overall workforce, and (2) it probably has taken some time for the BLS to assess a relatively new group of occupations that is evolving rapidly (as seen also in the swings in computer science degree production). All in all, in each of its reports BLS predicted that the professional level IT occupations would enjoy high salaries and more than twice the growth rate of the overall workforce.

The 2006-2016 BLS projections are available at:
Monthly Labor Review, November 2007
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/11/contents.htm
See in particular “Occupational employment projections to 2016.”

The 2004-2014 BLS projections are available at:
Monthly Labor Review, November 2005
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/11/contents.htm
See in particular “Occupational employment projections to 2014.”

The 2002-2012 projections are at:
Monthly Labor Review, February 2004
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2004/02/art5full.pdf

The 2000-2010 projections are at:
Monthly Labor Review, November 2001
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/11/art4full.pdf

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the professional IT workforce to grow at more than twice the rate of the overall workforce between 2006 and 2016, there is variation in projected changes among different IT occupations.

Although it cannot overshadow the significant growth projected for most professional-level IT workers, one of the most notable changes is the decline in the expected number of computer programmers. Among the 30 occupations with the largest projected job declines, computer programmers are one of only two occupations with salaries in the ‘very high’/$46,360+ category. (According to BLS, in May 2006 the median annual earnings of computer programmers were $65,510). In addition, programming is one of only two occupations among the 30 that typically require postsecondary education.

Why the drop in programmers? According to the report:

Computer programmers, the only occupation from the professional and related occupations on the list of the largest declining occupations, is expected to decline moderately as workers in other occupations acquire programming skills, as work is outsourced to foreign countries, and as some basic programming functions are automated.

The 2006-2016 BLS projections are available in the November 2007 Monthly Labor Review, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/mlrhome.htm. See in particular “Occupational employment projections to 2016.”

The report’s reference to outsourcing appears to rely on the ACM report, Globalization and Offshoring of Software: http://www.acm.org/globalizationreport/

See also the Computer Programmers section of the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos110.htm

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the professional-level IT workforce will grow at more than twice the rate of the overall workforce between 2006 and 2016, creating 1 in 19 new jobs. In addition, many of these jobs will pay well.

Every two years, BLS releases workforce projections covering a 10-year period. The definition for the ‘professional IT workforce’ used here is that used by the Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy (see the note below for more information).

In 2006, there were 3.5 million IT professionals out of a total workforce of 150.6 million. This part of the IT workforce is projected to add about 854,000 new jobs between 2006 and 2016, an increase of about 24%. Total job openings, which combine new jobs and net replacements, are projected to be 1.64 million for IT professionals. The overall workforce is expected to grow about 10% between 2006 and 2016, adding 15.6 million new jobs. This increases to 50.73 million jobs once net replacements are added in.

Five of the 30 occupations that are projected to grow the fastest (i.e., percent gain) between 2006 and 2016 are in the IT profession. Among the 30 fastest-growing occupations, 11 have median salary earnings of $46,360 or above, including all five IT occupations.

Three of the five IT occupations listed as the fastest growing also rank among the 30 that are projected to have the largest numeric growth. Only seven of these 30 have median salary earnings of $46,360 or more, including all three IT occupations.

Note: I have adopted the definition of ‘professional IT occupations’ that is used by the Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy. This adds two occupations to the ten listed under the “Computer specialists” category (15-0000 through 15-1099) in the BLS tables: Computer and information system managers (11-3021) and Computer hardware engineers (17-2061).

The next two posts will provide more detail on projections for individual IT occupations and compare the 2006-2016 projections to those made for 2004-2014.

The 2006-2016 BLS projections are available in the November 2007 Monthly Labor Review, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/mlrhome.htm. See in particular “Occupational employment projections to 2016.”

The National Science Foundation reports that the number of doctorates awarded in science and engineering (S&E) fields increased nearly 7% in 2006, to 29,854 (Figure 1). This was the fourth year of growth in S&E degree production. In comparison, doctorate degree production in non-S&E fields has hovered around 15,500 since 1997.

Computer sciences saw the greatest increase in degree production among S&E fields (Figure 2). Its 1,452 awards were a 28% increase on the previous year, which also had seen double-digit growth. Since 2002, the number of doctorates granted in CS has grown 79%. As a result, CS’ share of S&E and total doctorates has grown significantly during the past two years.

Most of the growth in CS doctorate degree production is due to an increase in the number of awards to non-U.S. citizens (permanent or temporary visa holders- Figure 3). During the mid-to-late 1990s, roughly half of CS doctorates were granted to non-U.S. citizens. By 2006, however, their share had risen to 61%. To put it another way: between 2002 and 2006, the number of doctorates granted to U.S. citizens increased 42%, compared to a 115% increase among non-U.S. citizens.

The NSF InfoBrief, U.S. Doctoral Awards in Science and Engineering Continue Upward Trend in 2006, is online at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08301/

The latest IIE Open Doors Report finds that the number of international students enrolled in computer and information science programs in the U.S. declined in academic year 2006/2007, as it has each year since 2002/2003. This occurred even as the number of new foreign students in all fields increased 10% between the Fall of 2005 and 2006, and as total enrollment of foreign students grew 3%.

The Institute of International Education tracks international students (graduate and undergraduate) and scholars in the U.S., as well as U.S. students who study abroad.

The 3% growth in the enrollment of foreign students between 2005/06 and 2006/07 was the first significant increase since 2001/02. Most of the growth occurred in the fields of Intensive English Study (accounting for 30% of the growth), Social Sciences (16%), and Business and Management (15%).

However, total enrollment of foreign students in computer and information sciences fell yet again. In 2006/2007, there were 33,437 students enrolled in CIS, a drop of nearly 3% on the year before and 42% lower than in 2003/2004. As a result, CIS’ share of international students dropped to 5.7%.

As was mentioned in an earlier post, computer science relies heavily on foreign students at the graduate level. In 2004, 56% of doctoral degrees and 44% of master’s degrees granted in CS were to foreigners. A shift in enrollment of foreign students therefore can have a big impact on degree production.

More information about Open Doors 2006 can be found at http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/