THE DYNAMICS OF THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF THE GEOSCIENCE WORKFORCE

AGI’s Geoscience Workforce Program collects and analyzes data pertaining to the changes in the supply, demand, and training of the geoscience workforce. Demographic trends in the various industries within the geoscience workforce still forecast a shortage of approximately 135,000 geoscientists in the next decade due to the approaching retirement of nearly half of all geoscientists and predicted job growth within the various geoscience industries. In 2012, there were nearly 300,000 geoscience jobs, and this number is expected to increase by 14% in 2022 to nearly 340,000 jobs. Approximately 143,000 geoscientists are expected to retire over the next decade, but nearly 51,000 students will be graduating with their bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees in geoscience during the same time period.

However, since this issue was raised a few years ago, efforts have been made to increase the recruitment and retention of new geoscience graduates and early-career geoscientists. Recent data highlight areas of change in the education of future geoscientists from K-12 through graduate school, as well as the transition of geoscience graduates into early-career geoscientists, which support recommendations for growth in the supply of the workforce. Such recommendations include the need to focus on the successful transition of 2-year college students to 4-year universities, the importance of internships, and the need to develop better networking and professional skills.