‘The age of mathematicians has arrived’: why universities and companies compete for professionals in Brazil

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Career growth is expected to grow by 30% in the next decade in the USA; The technology industry is responsible for much of the demand. Upon receiving an invitation with advantages to enter university, young Paula Eduarda de Lima thought it was ‘a scam’ Personal archive/via BBC Four years after graduating in applied mathematics, Fernanda Scovino still attends the college where she studied, Fundação Getúlio Vargas ( FGV), but not as a student — she is now looking for new talents for her teams. At the age of 25, she leads a team of six data analysts at Rio de Janeiro City Hall, and has an NGO, Database, which brings together and facilitates access to a series of information. “The competition for mathematicians is very big”, says Fernanda. “When I was studying, companies promoted visits to their offices, we were approached a lot by banks, consultancies, startups and technology companies”, she adds. Professor Maria Soledad Aronna says that this type of movement is quite common. She has been teaching the Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence course at FGV since 2012 and says that she has seen several former students return a few years later in management positions and after interns. The teacher says that companies even recruit second-year students, when they don’t even know the basics of the profession. “The student employability rate is 100%, and career growth has been extremely accelerated”, says Aronna. The market is really warm for those who master mathematics and related areas — such as statistics, data science, computing and algorithms. These people are valued because they have skills that go far beyond doing difficult calculations and calculations. They also develop an ability to think about problems in an abstract way and go in search of solutions. But the number of people training in these areas in Brazil does not seem to be keeping up with the demand. The Brazilian Association of Information and Communication Technology Companies, a sector where many of these professionals work, calculates, for example, that almost 160 thousand new vacancies are created per year. But only 53,000 graduates each year with the skills that companies are looking for, according to the association’s calculations — that is, there are around three vacancies for each new professional. The salary is around R$6,000 per month, almost four times the national average of R$1,600. But there are jobs on the market that pay double, triple or more for more experienced and qualified professionals. “The age of mathematicians has arrived,” said Keith McNulty, global director of science, technology and digital at consultancy McKinsey & Company, in a post on the social network LinkedIn in October last year. McNulty explains to BBC News Brasil that demand began to increase in the last ten years thanks to the popularization of new technologies. “The opportunities for mathematicians have multiplied,” says McNulty. “Many companies and organizations have started to work with large amounts of data, whereas before they used to restrict themselves to small spreadsheets.” Fewer absences and more focus: what those who take the 4-day week test in Brazil say ‘I thought it was a scam ‘ This high demand for professionals in mathematics and related areas produces a cascading effect in which universities go hunting for promising young people in school classrooms. “When I received the email, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a scam”, says Paula Eduarda de Lima, 18 years old, who received an invitation from FGV to participate in preparation for the entrance exam. If she was approved, she was guaranteed that she would receive financial help to move from Jaboti , in the interior of Paraná, to study data science and artificial intelligence in Rio. She was not the only case. FGV has offered a series of benefits to students from all over Brazil who are medalists in the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympiad (OBMEP). Technological industries have driven the demand for professionals linked to mathematics Getty Images/ via BBC Paula Eduarda had attracted attention by winning silver in 2021. For two years in a row, she also won gold at the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad (OBA) . Daughter of small farmers, Paula Eduarda accepted the invitation. Today, she is in the second year of the course. “I live with the other scholarship holders in a hotel and receive R$ 2,400 per month in support”, says the student, who sees in mathematics a way of “growing in life”. In the future, she says she sees herself working with data analysis in a large company or as a researcher at a university. Boss in Argentina goes viral after receiving an employee’s request for reimbursement for vacation travel expenses How mathematics moves the economy Income from jobs linked to Mathematics make up 4.6% of Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to a study by the institute Itaú Social made in partnership with the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (Impa). According to the study, men and white people occupy the majority of mathematics-intensive jobs, with a representation of 69% and 62%, respectively, although they are a minority in the general population, with a representation of 48.5% and 43.5%. % among Brazilians as a whole. Released at the end of last year, this was the first survey carried out to estimate how these professions drive the country’s economy. In other countries this participation is even greater, says Marcelo Viana, president of Impa. In England, 15% of GDP is represented by mathematics and its applications, points out Viana. In France, it is 18%. “Algorithms, data science and related fields are progressing rapidly as they are increasingly present in everyday life, in the products and software we use, with great weight in the economy”, explains Viana. In the United States, the government estimates that the number The number of vacancies for mathematicians and statisticians on the market will grow 30% between 2022 and 2032. The average salary is currently in the range of US$100,000 per year (almost R$500,000) — approximately double the average earnings of an American. Professionals in the field generally have a master’s degree in mathematics or statistics, according to the American government survey, but some vacancies only accept an undergraduate degree. This is a very different reality than what Keith McNulty, director of McKinsey, encountered in the past. “When I graduated with my PhD 25 years ago, I was lost because, at that time, the only option for mathematicians seemed to be to go into academia, something I didn’t find rewarding,” says McNulty. Who are ship valets? who can earn up to R$300,000 How much does a mathematician earn in Brazil? In the area, elementary school teachers have the lowest average salary Getty Images/via BBC The survey by Itaú Social and Impa showed that, in Brazil, the lowest salaries are precisely those of elementary school mathematics teachers, in around R$ 2.5 thousand. Vacancies in the areas of research and engineering cost around R$8,300 per month. Executives in public companies, the category with the highest average salary in the study, receive around R$14,400. Salaries in the private market can go even further. An artificial intelligence company in São Paulo, for example, pays between R$15,000 and R$20,000 for more experienced professionals, with a doctorate and some corporate experience, according to the report. However, according to a company executive, these values ​​are still “below the average” for the sector, and it is necessary to signal that this will be compensated by future bonuses and share options in order to recruit the best. This helps to understand why the vast majority of Fernanda Escovino’s colleagues who also studied mathematics work in the data area of ​​large companies and the financial market. “There are very few who become professors and researchers”, she says. She says that, before entering college, she thought about studying engineering “precisely because of the prejudice that people have of thinking that the only option for mathematicians is to become a professor”. But Fernanda says he fell in love with mathematics after taking a class in college. “The mathematics point of view teaches about a type of logical reasoning that is important in many careers, even more so today, with the popularity of data science” , says Fernanda, who is director of data and innovation. “People around us find it strange, but the positions in which mathematicians are held have titles that, for some, do not remind us of our discipline.” 5 countries with the best balance between personal life and work The bottlenecks for Brazil to become a Mathematics powerhouse Brazil’s shortcomings in mathematics education call into question the pace at which the country will be able to meet the demand for professionals Getty Images/via BBC If on the one hand the new professions have become a lure for mathematics, This became a problem for the training of new teachers. The low salaries paid to those who work in the classroom mean that fewer mathematicians seek a degree, says Marcelo Viana, from Impa. This creates an important bottleneck in Brazil and other countries. In 2022, mathematician Christophe Besse, president of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, in its French acronym), pointed to a parallel trend. “There is a decrease in the number of teachers and researchers and, therefore, a lower teaching capacity”, warned Besse. Another problem, says Viana, is that Brazil “has not kept up with the demand” in student training. Evidence of this, points out the president of Impa, are the results of Pisa, the main assessment of basic education in the world. While the 38 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), nicknamed the “rich club”, have an average of 31% of students with low performance in mathematics, the rate is 73% in Brazil. This means that seven out of every ten young people in the country cannot do the simplest calculations. “If you consider those who have reached a minimum level of knowledge to aspire to enter professions that require mastery of Mathematics, then the percentage is tiny, 4%”, says Viana. “Brazil has a huge need, as a result of structural problems in our teaching, which even makes mathematics seen as a bogeyman by students.” Biologist Cristina Caldas, director of science at the Serrapilheira Institute, dedicated to valuing scientific knowledge, argues that more public and private stimulus is needed to expand training in the area. “Initiatives that show how mathematical models, algorithms and the like are behind great advances that meet current demands, such as combating epidemics and progress in computing”, says Caldas. Brazil can thus become “a country rich in ideas that can solve urgent problems in today’s society”, argues the biologist. Serrapilheira is now in its 7th Public Call for Science Support, aimed at financing researchers in the areas of natural sciences, computing and mathematics at the beginning of their careers interested in solving major questions in the fields in which they work. Since 2018, 24 projects have been approved in the area of ​​mathematics, with a total investment of around R$7.5 million. In computer science, there were another 15 projects, with an investment of R$3.1 million. Keith McNulty, from McKinsey, points out, for those who want to make a living with Mathematics, that the market has changed a lot in the last 25 years. “The difference now lies in the large amount of data we have to work with and the complexity of the mathematical problems faced”, says the executive. McNulty emphasizes, however, that in the current context of high demand for the technology industry, it is not enough to have training in the area. Therefore, he advises: “Become competent in programming languages ​​if you want to make the best of your mathematical skills in your future career.” The dangerous trend of employees recording their dismissals to post on TikTok See also: What those who pass the 4-day week test in Brazil say

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