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A high percentage of Asian Americans are STEM majors

July 11, 2014

According to a U.S. Census Bureau report

A high percentage of Asian Americans employed in the U.S. have bachelor’s degrees in STEM — science, technology, engineering or mathematics — majors, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report Thursday.

The report, based on 2012 numbers from the American Community Survey, shows the percentage of bachelor’s degree majors obtained by the 41.6 million employed Americans aged 25 to 64 by field, sex and race.

Of the total 3.8 million Asians, 22 percent majored in engineering, 19.8 percent in computers, mathematics or statistics and 15.6 percent in physical or related sciences.

But in fields of actual employment, those working with computers came in first, with 613,670 workers. Following fields by employment were health care (544,950), non-STEM managers (436,585), finance (386,065) and office support (283,685).

STEM majors have low unemployment compared with other majors but don’t necessarily always find jobs in STEM fields, said Liana Christen Landivar, Census Bureau statistician.

Seventy-four percent of STEM majors ended up employed in non-STEM jobs, according to the report. But the report also shows that more than half of engineering and computer-related majors are working in major-related fields.