The geosciences have endured a long history of booms and busts in employment and enrollment.  Before 2005, nearly twenty years had past since the end of the last real boom for the geosciences.  However, with the sharp rise in energy and mineral prices, as well as a fundamental shift in the nature of the environmental industry, geoscience hiring has increased substantially, driven by both growth and increasing retirements of older professionals.  As seen in the past, enrollments of geoscience majors have tended to lag employment prospects by a couple years.  Yet even during downturns, some p

The geosciences have a substantial contribution to make for society on the issue of sustainability, however, very often that contribution is not effectively heard.  This stems from both a communication issue and a failure to be visible in its engagement of contributing to the betterment of humanity as we intensify our demands on natural resources and encroach on zones of higher risk.  In building out various communication and interdisciplinary efforts at AGI, much can be said for how the geosciences are perceived and why it is often the quietest voice in an the effort for which it often isn

For most of the last 50 years, the fortunes of geoscience programs at the university level have waxed and waned with the health of the natural resources industries.  These industries, and petroleum in particular, have experience major boom and bust cycles, of which geoscience programs often mirrored.  This relationship began to change in the early 1990’s when many geosciences programs began to offer environmental concentrations.  This shift only lasted about five years before job opportunities began to decline in that field as well.  By the mid 1990s, for the first time, the fortunes of geo

The geosciences in the United States have historically been driven by domestic needs and often resorted to importation of expertise to meet demand.  During this time, US geoscience has experienced a number of major booms and busts, but today is, as a discipline, less dependent on the immediate fortunes of the natural resources industries, but less certain of the source of demand.  Actual employment distribution has not changed substantially in the last fifteen years, with the petroleum industry remaining by  far the single largest employer of geoscientists in the United States, and even mor

Our community continually strives to close the workforce supply gap as geoscience professionals quickly approach retirement age. In an effort to bolster our future workforce, the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) developed a program called the Preparing our Workforce (POW) Initiative in which geoscience professionals visit departments to discuss the many diverse career opportunities available in our discipline with geoscience students.

The YES Network is an interdisciplinary global network of young and early-career geoscientists that connect primarily via web-based technologies to collaborate on geoscience projects, organize international conferences, and develop resources that help young and early-career progress along their academic and career paths into successful geoscience careers. The YES Network was formed as a result of the International Year of Planet Earth in 2007.

The Workforce Program has been a part of the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) since 1952 and it is the key source for information about the condition of the geoscience workforce and the preparation of future geoscientists. The main objectives of the Workforce Program are to inform the geoscience community about workforce trends and make predictions for future workforce needs, as well as engage the next generation of geoscientists by supporting student recruitment at the collegiate level and by informing students, faculty, and parents with geoscience career information.

Although geography is traditionally classified as a social science, the sub-discipline of physical geography is unique in that it overlaps with geoscience disciplines. In the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), physical geographers are listed as “Other Social Scientists” whereas geoscientists have their own category. Despite this separation, the basic description of each occupation is very similar. Furthermore, GIS, which is commonly taught in geography departments, is listed as a recommended skill set for geoscientists in the OOH.

AGI's GeoConnection Recruitment Packets provide geoscience departments with a tool to directly engage prospective geoscience majors in a discussion about the many career opportunities in the geosciences, and about the importance of participation in geoscience professional societies and conferences. Packets were distributed over 3 years, from 2009 to 2011 to participating institutions. In those three years, 2,279 packets were sent to 82 departments.