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A coming engineering shortage ? ---- Who agrees ? 86

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In some industries in the US, it is very difficult to send work out of the country. Maybe to buy products made outside the US, but not some things like civil engineers who have to stamp the work.

But some industries do build projects, rather than manufacture products. So that might be the difference.

Also as an older engineer, it is part of my job to provide training to younger engineers, except I am not allowed to flunk any of them, and there is no diploma.

When you hire an engineer, how do you know the quality without the paperwork? How do you know they have had additional training, and if they passed?

 
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In some industries in the US, it is very difficult to send work out of the country. Maybe to buy products made outside the US, but not some things like civil engineers who have to stamp the work.
Click to expand...

Even work that has to be stamped is being outsourced/offshored. It gets designed overseas and a guy registered in the States reviews (hopefully) and stamps it here.
 
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"You must remember and compliment Reagan and Thacher peace upon them"

Peace on Reagan perhaps.

A few years ago a handful of people over here were mourning Thatcher's death. I was too busy mourning her birth, along with most people in my patch of the country. We are still harvesting the poisoned crop she sowed.
 
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Careers Australia has just filed for bankruptcy, so that puff piece is pretty much old news. Also to be honest they were nothing to do with engineering, and a great deal to do with exploiting a badly thought out government scheme, which has just been terminated with extreme prejudice.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Some anecdotal evidence...

Where I live, the Registered Nursing profession has seen a starting wage increase in 30% over the past 10 years, and now I see billboards for the local health systems offering anywhere from $7,500-$20,000 starting bonuses-and they put this up on billboards! The local hospital (owner has hospitals in three other metro areas in the region as well) has 838 listings for nursing openings. Our state alone has 434 across multiple employers (hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home healthcare, etc).

Engineering starting salaries in our region have seen a 10-15% increase in ten years, and nobody is offering starting bonuses of any magnitude (maybe a couple thousand bucks to offset a moving trailer), and you certainly don't see bulletin boards about it!

I'll believe there is an engineering shortage when I see the market response the nurses are seeing.

 
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I've received a $10k signing bonus from all three employers the last decade and seen many others given as well. Usually its justified for miscellaneous moving costs but they've also covered movers and every other moving cost imaginable - reimbursement for hotels/meals/gas during travel, temporary housing or a couple month's rent for the next location, trips back-forth to settle personal business, realtor fees, closing costs, home purchases, etc. My understanding is that labeling it as a moving benefit (even if not moving) helps both sides from a tax standpoint.
 
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Mine's always been cash in my pocket regardless the name, never had a moving expense otherwise and wasnt sure what other moving benefits the Silicon Valley set get. Granted its not a year's salary but still a nice little bonus. Perks like this often make me wonder why so many younger engineers seem afraid of change. I've volunteered for layoffs twice where I knew I was getting 6+ months salary as severance, "moving" bonus, and leaving on a Friday with a better position waiting Monday.
 
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In 2014, I got a 25K signing bonus and just over 45K for moving expenses. In 2016, I got a 5K signing bonus (along with a 15% increase in pay over previous employer) at another local company. I agree with CWB1, not sure why people are afraid of change. I think most people are willing to accept the status quo and/or don't want to put in the effort to make something happen. Doing that will usually limit your growth. An example, I started at an EPC at the same time as another engineer in 2011. Our salaries were within 3K of each other. Now six years later his salary has increased ~ 22%. I am at my third different company since then and my salary has increased by just over 100%. He is one of those people that is content with being a "company guy" and doesn't care to look for anything else. He will probably work at the EPC for as long as they stay in business, for better or for worse. A lot of people under 40 seem to have that same view. They seemed thrilled to just to have a job and act like these companies are doing them a huge favor.
 
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"They seemed thrilled to just to have a job and act like these companies are doing them a huge favor."

That's not necessarily the only reason for not changing jobs:

> commute -- yes, I could change jobs if I were willing to put up with a 1hr+ one-way commute, but that's nowhere within my cost/benefit analysis space. I could move, but I like my house more than I like any company that's not within a reasonable commute
> starting over -- a new job entails a significant time to build up one's creds and reputation; often, one enters a new job essentially as a noob in the pecking order. Finding your new spot takes time and energy, neither of which I want to expend at this point in my career
> crappy people, etc. -- when you find a job where the crackheads and difficult people are gone, for whatever reason, that's hard to give up. Going to a new job entails the possibility of running into, and afoul of, self-centered nitwits, idiots, and other forms of lower life. These are chi-vampires; they suck your energy and give you nothing in return. You can't be sure of running across them during a single day interview, so it's a gamble. Often, you don't even find them until re-orgs and whatnot shake them loose from the woodwork, and you find yourself writing Pearl Harbor memos and pondering when to give them the finger and walk out.

I've changed jobs 7 times, more or less, not always voluntarily, and there have been at least few times in previous jobs where the above bullet points were true. There's one guy in the current company that's a bit of a chi-vampire, but only because he whines about having never done something before, which is a real motivation sink during a proposal. But, he's not always on my proposals, so I can live with that.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I have to agree with some comments above; generous bonuses are common in US, less if any in other parts of the world, meaning there are more lucrative opportunities in US for employees.

IRstuff - I like your comments about " crappy people" oh boy .... when you come across toxic people my best advice is ...run. Life is to short to put up with that.


 
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IRstuff said:
That's not necessarily the only reason for not changing jobs:

> commute
> starting over
> crappy people, etc
Click to expand...

Of course there are other factors to be considered when contemplating a job change and each one should carry some weight. I always factor those in as well. I have excel spreadsheets that I made for economical analysis that include commuting costs, time spent on work related activities (commute + expected hours at work), benefits costs, state and local taxes, etc. Luckily, I don't mind the starting over part since I tend to make an impact and get noticed for my abilities rather quickly. Could that not be the case somewhere, sure, but so far, it has always worked out that way for me. As for people, I just see people as people. I don't expect to go anywhere to make new friends. I just keep it work related and build good working relationships. This has also proved very successful for me.

All that said, I have turned down significantly more jobs than I have accepted due to commute considerations and/or vibe I got during interviews. The current place I work now had some questionable individuals that I met during the interviews and it increased commute from 7 miles to 33. I was on the fence on this one, but I saw the potential and it has been a great job change.
 
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I don't think most take issue with older folks settling or even "coasting" to retirement (within reason), but for engineers fresh out of college its pretty detrimental to their career IMHO.
 
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Hey!!! you calling me old?

Well...

I resemble that remark.

The bottom line is that some people love change, are adrenaline junkies, or they're ambivalent, or they hate change. It takes all kinds of people to make a good team. Having no tribal knowledge can be a really bad thing. There needs to be some old curmudgeonly geezer that can tell you, "oh yeah, we did that 15 years ago, and here's why that was a disaster." That actually happened, but the old geezer was only IBM Tech Systems Journal that had a paper from 15 years prior explaining why we were $3M in the hole because some lame maintenance guy decided to monkey with the previously qualified and working process.


TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Interesting topic and comments, which I have enjoyed reading.

Engineers, as a group, tend to be negative and I've heard that comment from quite a few non-engineers. Life is never so bleak as some think, including me. And life is very hard for me right now so I am no Pollyanna.

Whether there is a shortage or not, nature and nurture will still effect engineering. People usually move towards their desires even when outside motive forces are not acting upon them. In short, I don't know that we have that much control over numbers in the profession. We do not need to sell young people on STEM. We need to educate them about it enabling them to make a good decision for their lives. It's not about us but them and their interests. We've made our decisions.

I've been participating in the Central Chapter of NSPE-CO, since 2014. It's been quite an education. I understand the importance of licensure and membership in NSPE better now and I am still learning. It is interesting to listen to engineers, attorneys, and insurance companies discuss problems that arise and how they are dealt with, in and out of court. One engineer has been in court numerous times on various things and always takes in a wagonload of documentation and ensures he is familiar with his wagonload of documentation. It matters and is not insignificant. There are many such stories engineers tell about this kind of thing. Attorneys and insurance companies have some interesting stories.

With changes coming in technology, I believe licensure will become even more important and widespread. At least one old industrial company has done away with the industrial exemption and spent several hours explaining what that meant to their engineering staff. With autonomous vehicles coming, based upon some of the presentations I've heard on it, the automotive industry will probably change. I don't know how ubiquitous that thinking is as it is just my opinion based upon what I've learned in the last 4 years of membership in NSPE. My former employer didn't want to assume the legal responsibilities for its engineers any longer and I cannot believe others will not follow suit.

Licensure in the USA is rooted in the US Constitution through Amendment 10 as well as Article 4, Section 2. With that in view, I foresee licensure for engineers as transportation technologies advance.

When I researched ABET's and NCEES's websites, I began to realize that licensure is not insignificant because a lot of effort goes into making it possible. It provides a standard to measure competence much like licensure for physicians and attorneys. And for those who don't put much stock in standards, let's go back to no standards on threads, fiber, etc. and see how good everything works. I know there are problems everywhere but it's a place to begin.

Life events are seldom simple and people are seldom simple. The state of industry, engineering, society, etc. are due to a host of factors, to me. In the USA, a general coarsening of our society has occurred over my lifetime, which is disheartening. We don't value human capital. We have isolated ourselves into silos, which is destructive. This statement reflects some of what I see, "I just don’t understand the disrespectful attitude toward working people.” Source: AFL-CIO CEO-Worker Pay Ratio




Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
 
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I've heard the suggestion that engineers are negative before. I disagree, although I understand where the perception comes from.

We're the ones who see the practicalities and the difficulties in doing something, and we speak up about those things because we understand them. In the eyes of the dreamers we're negative because we shoot holes in their ideas right at the outset. I actually think we're some of the most positive people out there: the optimists who say "Yeah, it hasn't been done before, but we'll find a way to make it work even though we aren't sure quite how." Our underlying optimism is often masked by other traits though, like the cynicism which often develops after a few years in the business, and our seemingly dogmatic application of 'the rules'.

We don't help our cause much do we?
 
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I have noticed a trend I call 'magical thinking'. Somebody assumes some outcome they'd like to see, as an enhancement on the present state, and it becomes the foundation of some future state. The ballbusters amongst us then point out that while FS is a nice goal, PS to FS is not just a case of waving a wand and shouting some hokum Latin, but may involve spending money, time, resources, at the very least, might need to break a few physical laws, and will have unintended consequences. This makes said ballbusters unpopular with politicians, Social Justice Warriors, and the Twitterati.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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