Research and science jobs (in the government sector and some private R&D companies) aren’t likely to be cut despite the economic crisis. Pundits largely agree that one of the best investments during this hard times is in science research. While grants for new research will be less, existing research will still have money and jobs in this sector are likely to be secure. The biggest employers in the sector are likely in the pharmaceutical sector which still have lots of cash. The drugs market isn’t likely to contract. But even then this sector has been doing downsizing EVEN BEFORE the crisis hit. The education, IT and health sectors are still hiring as sciencemag reports. In education, the demand for science teachers is likely to increase. The Obama presidency may even result in more science/tech jobs in the USA.
Perhaps one of the positive developments in the Philippines is there is a “boom” in science jobs never before seen. This is a direct result of continued increase in S&T funding by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration over the span of 5 years. This science investment as finally translated as full blown research programs. For example I have written about the 17 urgent senior research associate jobs in an earlier post. I just learned that more then 30 jobs are needed initially. When the research programme enters its second phase, there will be more jobs available that each lab can employ a complement of 50 to 100 people.
We just hope that when the research programs end, economic times would be better and investors would be attracted to the new opportunities provided by these activities. As for the teaching sector, I was informed that the country’s top universities are in need of many new PhDs in their attempt to improve faculty profile and output. Perhaps this is a positive result of those despised university ranking surveys! :-) Not only PhDs are needed in the universities. In teaching colleges, Masters degree holders are needed to teach the basic sciences. This is also noted in the professional schools.
Since there is a demand for these services, the salaries have started to become extremely attractive that some science grads have DITCHED the CALL CENTERS for the lab! The senior researcher jobs with all the benefits may give a young man/woman about 25K a month something that only a few call centers can initially match.
As for the PhDs, the salaries in the private universities are quite attractive and approach middle management rates in the corporate world and offer the possibility of TENURE, something rare in the corporate sector.
If these positive developments continue, the country might see the start of a science driven economy. But this will require a long term vision for the politicians and investors. So in 2010, we have to ask the presidentiables what their ideas on this are.
Too bad I got by BSc ages ago!
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can you describe what these research programs are? what fields? how much money are we talking about?
thanks!
Yap, this is the way to go. Enough of fancy MBAs and thinking that the coolest job in the universe is to become a Wall Street investment banker and play God with other people’s money. Yay [yehey], capitalism (as we know it), is dead, or will be soon. The spirit of the great Karl M is back with a vengeance.
Agree, Madonna. But I hope the state don’t revoke the title to my house and lot.
Around 1 B is the amount the scientists are playing with. The projects are in drug discovery, climate change adaptation and food security.
if only science was applied here:
http://www.markbravo.net/2009/01/butt-hygiene-can-get-you-fired.html
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/146512/OFW-in-toilet-mess-urged-to-sue-employers
Bert,
Marx will be proven right in the end (probably not in our lifetime), at least in this aspect (he was not so good in the specifics, but generally, his ideas formed a cohesive humanist theory of society: what matters most is people, their labor/aspirations, their contribution to society and what is rightly owed to them — not this piece of pie in the sky or abstraction called the “market”, which only really exists, strictly speaking, in economic books. And I don’t believe economists per se make good leaders or politicians, whether here in Pinas or in other countries.
What does the army of bankers and their kind who are paid insane amounts of money as a whole contribute to society, or to the future of our planet? Compared with the teacher, the nurse/doctor, the engineer/researcher, the farmer, even the plumber? Something is not so right or is very primitive with an economic system whose mechanism for rewarding productivity is skewed towards those who hold money first and foremost. Say, I want to see the day when artists and scientists would be the highest paid people on the planet (but perhaps that will come a thousand years from now, and not if we destroy our planet first).
Re: the state (it was only the communist followers of Marx who distorted his philosophy and made the state as the monster instead). Marx said that a true communist economic system must be free of political hierarchies — and this is what happened to the former communist states (which erected its political hierarchies via the communist party, and purged the intelligentsia) people would like to point out to discredit the ideas of Marx. The true Marxist state is one which is non-existent or is in the process of withering away (now, paradoxically, that’s what proponents of laissez faire economics wants government to be).
Also, I am a staunch believer in private property (i.e., my life, my aspirations/labors, my heritage) because it is a natural right and inalienable (and Marx was not against private property per se).
FYI, I find “communists” either a bunch of intellectual charlatans (e.g., Joma whose ass is safely perched in Utrecht while his brainwashed followers eat camote in the mountains so they can wage the “revolution”) or, so very, very confused, they become linguistically challenged.
Hope, I’m not contradicting myself – I have been influenced by Marxist/Marxian philosophy, yes, but communism has never appealed to me (not since after smelling the slightest whiff of BS coming from an LFS cadre who was trying to recruit me in college and not after reading Amado Guerrero aka Joma Sison’s garbage of a book entitled Philippine Society and Revolution — one of the worst books ever written; I was 18.)
Madonna
Happy Darwin Year!
Marx will be right only in one thing, the State will wither away. But not due to his theory, but probably due to it being selected against in the Darwinian sense.
Marxism is not the highest form of thought as Dodong Nemenzo once proclaimed. Darwinism is the highest form of thought! :-) And its predictions have all come to pass! :-)
The economic disaster we have now may suggest that capitalism may be no longer confer society adaptive fitness.
Joma Sison should read his Darwin and learn the reason why he has been selected against.
The Joma Sison Catechism (Phil Society and Revolution) is riddled with logical inconsistencies and deserves the trash bin, I agree.
baycas
Hahahahaha! Townsville! My beloved city! The Aussies have to get a multicultural lesson on toilet culture.
When I was there, for immersion into north Queensland culture, they orientated me on the right way to use a dunny. Now dunnies are havens for deadly red back spiders, scorpions and the occassional taipan. So you should know how to position your arse!
But none of us (overseas students) sued the Australian government for exposing us toilet hazards!
hahahahahahahahaha! LOL
LOL!
to blackshama: when you were in Australia, were there ever instances when an Aussie or the other foreign student would blurt out “… yes, I like Filipinos.” When they did, what did they say that you’d say was truly complimentary to Filipinos?
Thirty slots don’t make employment a dent, do they? Even 50 to 100, at the next recruitment cycle, do not.
Science courses are expensive for the average or poor families. PhDs are always a dwindling population in every case.
What I understand from PGMA is creating jobs – a million at an instant. Jobs that are by their very nature do not need any educational requirement than a mere high school diploma.
Fact is, in the agricultural sector, they think jobs are created in every layer of the production process and they count every pair of hand into that activity as well, JOB.
Everything has to be blown out of proportion. That is what the NEDA does – doctored profiles and their percentages.
Even if the doors be opened for PhDs, I don’t think there will be a queue.
UP n grad
I never heard anything like that. But you see, I was practically a larrikin and any condescending statement like that can elicit an devastating riposte such as “Australians speaking English! Don’t make me laugh!”
Karlpopper
We are quite late on the science and national development game. GMA at least has realized that govt needs to subsidize the educational costs of students in the sciences in view of national development.
While on a national scale 50-100 jobs won’t make a dent, these 50-100 jobs are much more valuable on a long term than say temp jobs in the BPO sector.
The point is the jobs did really make a splash in the science graduate community and not quite a few have ditched the call centers for them.
The doors are open for PhDs but extremely few are qualified!
blackshama… you do say that in the many years while studying in Australia, you didn’t hear any positive comments about Filipinos, right? I would have thought that you would have encountered better, that’s a shame.
That is a very Filipino trait (i.e. wanting to hear positive comments about Filipinos).
One of the culture shocks a Pinoy in Oz meets is that Australians do not usually praise anyone who excels. This is a result of the so called “tall poppy” syndrome. In the Philippines our culture especially in school, reinforces the need to get praise or approbation. We get pats on the back for getting high grades, extracurricular activity etc to the extent it becomes ridiculous. So if no one pats you on the back in Oz, take it as a compliment. If you do your work well you would be considered as a mate and be treated to a shout (a beer). That is the real compliment.
This is the context in which I wrote that if ever that was said to me (Filipinos being liked or praised) I would probably retort with sarcasm!
And when I came back, that attitude got me into trouble with my department chair! It took me two years to become Pinoy again. But you cannot bleed out the Australian in me. After living there for years, I am a foreigner in my own country.
As said in the Nicole Kidman movie “Australia”. The land as a magnetic grip on you!
One of the culture shocks a Pinoy in Oz meets is that Australians do not usually praise anyone who excels. This is a result of the so called “tall poppy” syndrome. In the Philippines our culture especially in school, reinforces the need to get praise or approbation. We get pats on the back for getting high grades, extracurricular activity etc to the extent it becomes ridiculous. So if no one pats you on the back in Oz, take it as a compliment. If you do your work well you would be considered as a mate and be treated to a shout (a beer). That is the real compliment.
This is the context in which I wrote that if ever that was said to me (Filipinos being liked or praised) I would probably retort with sarcasm!
And when I came back, that attitude got me into trouble with my department chair! It took me two years to become Pinoy again. But you cannot bleed out the Australian in me. After living there for years, I am a foreigner in my own country.
As said in the Nicole Kidman movie “Australia”. The land has a magnetic grip on you!
Sorry for the double posting. My keyboard is screwed up! :-(
BTW in Australia, it is now considered in poor taste to speak badly of your cultural origins, unless you have English ancestry! That’s why Benig0 peeves me a bit although his points are valid!
So if you are Scot wear a kilt, Italian, cook pasta, Pinoy, cook adobo, Polynesian, dance a traditional dance, English, deny any connection with the Old Country!
this research on climate, food security… its not available on the web? not even abstracts? a descriptive website maybe? i’m interested in the kind of science being done in RP on these issues…
not even if you are smothered by plaudits like, “excellent”, “lovely”, “beautiful”, when all the pinoy did is to show them the calculator function in excel? ;)