Analysis of Human Resource Development in the STEM Field in Japan: Based on Government Statistics

Abstract

This study examined the relationship of the human resources in the STEM field that were nurtured through school education with an analysis of the current state of the labor force in the STEM field in order to investigate the ideal way of STEM education in Japan. The results showed that the Japanese STEM human resources analyzed through a comparison with the United States accounted for about 6% of the labor force, which was about the same as that of the United States. In addition, the characteristics of the engineers included in Japan’s main STEM human resources showed that the number of information processing/communication engineers and medical engineers increased in recent years. Engineers who specialized in the humanities and science fields have also become important in addition to the human resources development of conventional engineering. Regarding STEM human resources in Japan from the viewpoint of human resource development, it was found that the development of engineers in specialized fields other than that of conventional engineering was added in an overlapping manner.