The problem with the “workforce development” narrative
“Workforce development” is a potent rallying cry for everything from recruitment initiatives to improving classroom instruction to prioritizing diversity and inclusion. In quantum information science, this narrative seems to be particularly prominent at present, with dire warnings that the US will fall behind in the race to build a commercially-viable quantum computer if we don’t recruit enough scientists. The narrative is simple: we aren’t training enough young physicists, so we need to do everything we can to recruit more into the workforce.
The problem is, the workforce development narrative puts the cart before the horse. Sure, physics needs more physicists to remain viable as a discipline. The problem with this thinking is that people are not commodities — they have the right (at least within the constraints of capitalism) to choose their own careers. We can’t force anyone to become a physicist; all we can do is make physics accessible and attractive to those considering such a career.
Physics culture, despite its beautiful aspects, is fundamentally toxic for just about anyone who is not a self-confident straight white man. If we want to focus on recruiting more people into physics (or physics-adjacent fields), we need to develop a more welcoming culture. If people don’t want to become physicists because they sense a culture problem in the discipline, it is on us to adapt our culture to the reality of the world we live in, not on members of society to somehow spontaneously adapt to our ideals just because we have a labor shortage.
Likewise, we need to lower the barriers to entry to get into physics, recognizing that it usually takes substantial economic and social privilege to get into the halls of academic physics in the first place. From a practical perspective, it’s on us to meet our prospective young physicists where they are at and help them grow, not on them to meet arbitrary standards of excellence before we take them in the door. To expect the broader society to somehow produce enough candidate physicists to meet our workforce expectation (without trying to meet society in the middle) is like expecting cold fusion to work — it would be nice in principle, but at the end of the day physics research is subordinate to both natural law and societal reality.
Yes, physics has a need for more physicists, but it is our responsibility to clean up our own side of the street first. We can promote ourselves all we want, but until we fix our culture and accessibility problems, such promotion will ring hollow. If we want more physicists, let’s start by making physics a space where people want to be!
