Our Views: Hot market for science

• Published: May 12, 2008 - Page: 6B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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As unskilled jobs continue to move overseas, the future of Louisiana increasingly will depend on the knowledge-based economy, including research institutions that drive economic development.

But research institutions such as LSU’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge and the university’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center need highly skilled scientists to advance their work, and competition for those scientists is intense.

That point was underscored by the latest issue of Southern Compass, the newsletter of the Southern Growth Policies Board. Based in North Carolina, the nonprofit, nonpartisan group tracks civic and economic issues across the region.

The unemployment rate of U.S. scientists and engineers has dropped to a record low, Southern Compass editors noted in the May 6 edition.

“The latest available data from 2006 showed that the unemployment rate for U.S. scientists and engineers dropped to 2.6 percent,” according to Southern Compass. “The total number of scientists and engineers grew by 1 million between 2003 and 2006. The workers who had either a doctorate or a professional degree had an even lower unemployment rate of 1.6 percent.”

Businesses employed almost 70 percent of all scientists and engineers, according to the National Science Foundation.
In such a market, Louisiana will have challenges recruiting and keeping the best scientific minds. That should affirm the urgency of funding Louisiana’s research institutions so they can be competitive in the intellectual marketplace — and advancing a local quality of life that will attract the best and brightest.