DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office

https://www.science.org/content/art...ore-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office

Interesting analysis of a topic that is probably under the radar for many. Many graphs in the link, so won't copy the text here.

It will be a while from now, but in the future, this will really sting....

TWSS

How many of these positions were necessary? Does anybody have an answer to that?

Just because some held a Ph.D. doesn't mean they were doing anything of worth.

I don't know 'Peen. Some may say twelve government employees are "necessary" to change a light bulb.

As usual, the headline doesn't really paint the entire picture though. In fact, some may even (rightfully so) call the title of the thread a lie. The net loss was 4224 STEM Ph.D.s., it says it right there in the second paragraph of the story.

Never much time to read beyond the headline though, get your quick dopamine hit and move on to the next. But hell, anything to embellish a story that "Trump hates science"; I guess that's the goal anyway.

What a lot of us hate, and voted for, is government bloat. But as usual, just like Daman's post above, libs love to paint a scary picture of the future and forever hide in the bushes when it doesn't come to pass. It's like groundhog's day for dummies.

And then there's this:

Why they left

Science’s analysis found that reductions in force, or RIFs, accounted for relatively few departures in 2025. Only at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where 16% of the 519 STEM Ph.D.s who left last year got pink RIF slips, did the percentage exceed 6%, and some agencies reported no STEM Ph.D. RIFs in 2025.

At most agencies, the most common reasons for departures were retirements and quitting. Although OPM classifies many of these as voluntary, outside forces including the fear of being fired, the lure of buyout offers, or a profound disagreement with Trump policies, likely influenced many decisions to leave.

Many Ph.D.s departed because their position was terminated. At NSF, 45% of the 204 STEM Ph.D.s who left last year were rotators—academics on leave from their university to work for a few years at the agency. Last year, NSF eliminated three-quarters of those positions.


So -- most departures had nothing to do with "pink slips". A lot of the people who left peed their pants on the way out the door because they don't like Trump. Many of the terminated were those that bounce back and forth between government and academia.

Scary story #4559 about how Trump is wrecking the country and there will be hell to pay later.