FORGET TENURE? Many young U.S. scientists have trouble finding permanent jobs in their fields.
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Editor's Note: Beryl Lieff Benderly, a fellow of the American Associaton for the Advancement of Science, writes about scientific labor force and early career issues in the Science Careers section of Science.

In this rough-draft article, she argues that the scientific labor market is broken, that the U.S. educational system actually produces too many qualified researchers for too few positions, and that a perverse funding structure perpetuates the problem, among other points. We'd like your views on this topic and suggestions on ways to further develop the article. Please use the Comments section at the bottom of the page.
 
Here are a few questions to get you started:
 
After reading the article, do you disagree with the "almost universally accepted" idea that there is a national "technical talent dearth"?
 
What was your reaction to the assertion that the decline of white males in science indicates a drop in the desirability of science careers?
 
Do you think that U.S. education policy should work on improving the science-math performance of the children at the bottom, overwhelmingly from low-income families and racial and ethnic minorities, rather than the performance of all children?
 
How dismal do the science job prospects described here seem in the context of the broader economy?
 
Do you accept as solutions to the "scientist glut" problem that we need to create better-paying staff jobs in labs, reduce low-paying post-doctoral positions and generally restructure the way that the U.S. staffs and funds its academic laboratories?
 
What are the biggest challenges faced by the "American research enterprise--the indispensable engine of national prosperity"? What do you think should be done to make it better?
 
What will happen over the next decade or so as lab space (and grants) start freeing up as the baby boomers who occupy those posts hit retirement?
 
What other perspectives on science career opportunities would you like to see in this article?

For years, Americans have heard blue-ribbon commissions and major industrialists bemoan a shortage of scientists caused by an inadequate education system. A lack of high-tech talent, these critics warn, so threatens the nation’s continued competitiveness that the U.S. must drastically upgrade its K-12 science and math education and import large numbers of technically trained foreigners by promptly raising the current limit on the number of skilled foreigners allowed to enter the country to work in private industry. “We face a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers who can develop new breakthrough technologies,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates testified to Congress in March 2008.

But many less publicized Americans, including prominent labor economists, disagree. “There is no scientist shortage,” says Harvard University economist Richard Freeman, a leading expert on the academic labor force. The great lack in the American scientific labor market, he and other observers argue, is not top-flight technical talent but attractive career opportunities for the approximately 30,000 scientists and engineers—about 18,000 of them American citizens—who earn PhDs in the U.S. each year.