Given the state of affairs for postdocs, how should we interpret claims of a "STEM shortage"?
Ignoring that, as someone involved in a group with 4 open positions that have been open for the better part of a year, the shortage is there. It's not so much that there is a shortage of people capable of applying who "kind of" meet the requirements, but truly capable engineers in this field who could pick up the work required are definitely in short supply, PhDs or no.
If the need for these positions to be filled is sufficiently low that your group can be that picky for almost a year, it would seem demand is pretty low, thus poor evidence for a shortage.
I appreciate that the ability to pay people enough to attract them is a problem that is very difficult for institutions and organizations to solve, but living on a sub-standard salary with no job security and few career prospects (how many tenure-track opportunities are expected to open up in the next five years for the people who would fill those positions?) is a difficult problem for highly skilled post-doctoral candidates to solve, too.
As to the price point, I'm not convinced. Raising the potential salaries for these positions would attract people, obviously, but the price point would attract them away from their current jobs, leaving a vacancy at another company. If this is the situation, raising the salary doesn't suddenly generate new engineers with the necessary skills. The problem is the existing engineers with the necessary skills are already hired and fulfilled leaving only the option of headhunting.
At a more practical level, yes, if we hired these positions, our capabilities would be extended greatly. Hell, hiring one would be enough. However, there is not enough value in that new hire to justify raising the salary above it's current position.
And lastly, no one has been offered the position and then rejected it because of the pay. The last 3 offers given out were immediately accepted. We just haven't found anyone worth giving an offer for these remaining 4.
I'm unconvinced by this argument. Sure, it's true on the level of individual labs/companies; but if every lab paid postdocs something closer to industry, then probably more people would be drawn towards that whole vague sector of "technical work".
Edit: Or phrase it another way. The shortage of skilled postdocs, you'd presumably agree, is bigger than the shortage of skilled engineers in industry. If you offered higher postdoc salaries, the shortage would be spread more evenly across academia and business.
Why would they when there's no meaningful difference in pay between postdoc positions? What would happen if they tried to negotiate for something approaching an industry equivalent salary/benefits?
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but you're saying that you're failing to find people who are ready to work on day one without additional training?
These people are often described in the press as "business leaders".
Technology, Engineering, Math--- yes, there's a shortage.
Sciences like physics and chemistry (especially petrochemistry!) are definitely still needed.
Sciences like biology and life sciences have far too many graduates. Graduates like me (B.S. in Biochem) and I'm now doing webdev!!!
It's good that they have fallbacks. But it's still not clear that we as a society really value or want mathematicians or physicists, as opposed to coders and quants.
The "STEM shortage" meme is pushed by capitalists who want a cheap and compliant workforce.