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

[MJCronin]

A recent article says that there will be an acute shortage ... particularly in the electrical field !!!

http://www.csemag.com/single-articl...hortage/7b350ef419c231a9f82abc6c8bd8fac4.html

Who agrees ???

Who strongly disagrees ???

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer

 

[HornTootinEE]

Does anyone have any evidence or links to research that counters the "hype" that there is an engineer shortage? I don't believe there is either, but you'd think someone had actually looked into it and published research, even if it's just a magazine article.

 

[moltenmetal]

I've posted these before, but I never get tired of posting them again:

A detailed, well-documented study of the engineering labour market in Canada, in Ontario in particular, based on solid census data and other similar sources:

https://www.ospe.on.ca/public/documents/advocacy/2015-crisis-in-engineering-labour-market.pdf

The conclusions, in brief:

- only 31% of engineering grads in Canada work as engineers or engineering managers. It is the lowest match rate between education and work placement of any of the country's regulated professions
- the lines of the number of engineering grads (supply) and the number of engineering jobs (demand) have different slopes, and have diverged steadily over the past two decades
- a larger fraction (33%) of engineering grads work in jobs not requiring a university degree of any kind. That alone is clear evidence of a massive under-employment situation for engineering grads in Canada
- the 69% working outside engineering, earn on average 20% less than the 31% who do, so if they've left the profession voluntarily they've done so against their economic interests
- 92% of engineering 4th yr students surveyed indicated that they definitely or probably will pursue a career in engineering- obviously, many fresh grads are unable to find work and hence lose their chosen profession rather than choosing to abandon engineering

Another well documented study, indicating a systemic pattern of predictions of future STEM shortages that has happened since the 1940s:

http://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

 

[BUGGAR]

The STEM program here was such a failure that they had to add "arts" and make it STEAM. This was to entice at least someone, even artists, to go into engineering.

 

[spraytechnology]

I guess it is kept silent. Although doing ok at math and science, my kids have no desire to go STEM either. So be it.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

I would take STEAM if it brought back the impression that engineering is or can be a creative endeavor. Sometimes, I feel like the public thinks that engineering is a souless endeavor like bookkeeping.

 

[davefitz]

Well, I saw the recent movie "the accountant", and I had previously thought the accountants job was pretty dull, but Affleck ( the accountant) must have killed 200 people within 1 week of dull work. Maybe they should make a movie called "the engineer" with similar blood and guts to draw more kids to STEM..

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick

 

[BUGGAR]

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
FTFY

 

[spraytechnology]

read this very...interesting comments to say the list .. ref "power engineering "

" Engineers imported from overseas as Australians struggle to find jobs "

http://www.theage.com.au/business/w...ns-struggle-to-find-jobs-20161220-gtes3q.html

 

[awhicker84]

Engineering seems to be one of the most difficult white collar ways of making money.

High responsibility
High Stress
High visibility
Low / Slow upward movement
Low respect
Med pay

I'm really getting tired of it. I'm pretty much ready to move on. Maybe I'm a 'B' engineer, but I feel like there is only one person on our engineering team better than myself. Who knows. I'm tired of fighting all the time, tired of every team pushing me to make 'easier' decisions for mfg, cost and time. Tired of building Bill of Materials. Tired of B / C engineers asking me simple problem solving questions. And I hate how software knowledge is more important than knowledge. Some person knows how to run CFD and Ansys and his resume is gold. Same guy doesn't know what to do when the customer asks him about clearances without running a stupid 3D software. Why didn't engineers divorce themselves from 3D software? Just contract it out. I don't care how to make the grid to do this or do that. I need to know what the stress is here. Make it happen.

I guess you can tell that I'm over the whole thing.

: )

 

[spraytechnology]

I have to agree with most of the above ! Since globalization and the rise of industralization in the far east, and the shift to service industries in the west, the future of engineering opportunities as we know it, is limited.

 

[GregLocock]

Unless you innovate. I realise that the opportunity for innovation is limited in 'design to code' industries, but believe it or not somebody did once get moment plasticity design of steel frames onto the books, so it is possible.

As to pay, clerical engineering is not well paid. Neither is clerical banking.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[Tunalover]

Where I work is chock full of foreign citizens on visas. Management there must be claiming an engineer shortage so they can reach out to these foreign workers and pay them MUCH less than a US citizen.

Tunalover

 

[moltenmetal]

STEAM is a meaningless term. It's an attempt to lump "arts" in with science/technology, engineering and math just to give "arts" some cachet, rather than trying to imply that there is "art" or creativity in any of those other subjects.

What- languages aren't important? Or the social sciences? Or economics?

There is no STEM shortage nor any shortage of kids interested in pursuing STEM careers. There is a persistent shortage of employers willing to take on fresh graduates and train them. That shortage results in a shortage of people at the putative "peak" return on investment for an employer, i.e. someone with ten- not two or thirty- years of relevant experience gained at someone else's expense. These employees will be in perpetual short supply if employers don't realize that professionals need to be built from good raw materials, not purchased like widgets off a shelf.

awhicker84: I hear you. I get tired of people telling me what a good gig engineering is. The risk and stress to reward ratio for the average engineer is terrible. We have allowed our profession to be commodified, primarily by selling our services by the hour rather than getting paid for the value we create by embodying our engineering in products which we sell. When all you sell is man-hours, all engineers are reduced to equivalent billing units and subject to hourly price competition, tempting employers to stuff cubicles with billing units of questionable virtue in order to get ahead. We find it's far easier to be compensated in accordance with the value we create if we forget about selling man-hours and instead make a product which embodies our engineering and sell that. It's also a hell of a lot more rewarding.

 

[cranky108]

It's the engineering shortage that allows me to say 'NO' rather than having to kill butt to keep my job. I like that.

 

[ScottyUK]

Lawyers sell man-hours too, but as a profession they were smart enough to set up a closed shop and then charge premium rate for their services. Their business model works for them, while ours doesn't.

 

[BigInch]

WE engineers only control the design. We don't maintain control product marketing and sales.

Reaction to change doesn't stop it

 

[moltenmetal]

Here in Ontario, the other thing that distinguishes law and medicine from the rest of the regulated professions is that in each case, 80-90% of their licensees are also members of their advocacy body. In the case of doctors here, their advocacy body is basically a union- it negotiates fees from our single payor medical insurance system, i.e. the provincial government.

We engineers instead went the other way- we were licensed for eighty years before we founded an advocacy body, used the excuse of not having one to not do ANY advocacy on behalf of professional engineers because doing so would be somehow a conflict of interest...and eroded our own restricted realms of practice by permitting an industrial exemption from licensure and a Certificate of Authorization program to permit corporations to do professional engineering in their own name (i.e. what can amount to one signatory engineer taking responsibility for the work, with a crowd of non-engineers doing the actual work).

The median salary for a level D engineer is the same as that for a teacher here in the province, once you account for all the extra vacation the teachers get. And we're not done our race to the bottom yet- we keep on digging...

 

[IRstuff]

"eroded our own restricted realms of practice by permitting an industrial exemption"

And yet, in California, where there is an industrial exemption, engineers at Alphabet got high 6-figure salaries and most engineers in Silicon Valley do very well. This argument continues to come up, yet, for someone like me, who NEVER sees the public, NEVER works on anything that impinges on public safety, there's this harping to get licensure. But for what? Ultimately, we still get sold by the pound, because that's the way contracts are set up. But, my pay is fine as is the pay of all the engineers in the company, so what rationale is there for licensure?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[HamburgerHelper]

Maybe, they were talking about running into a shortage of engineers to import.

 

[spraytechnology]

In US the engineering workforce is not swamped by "foreign engineers" as legal migration is way more regulated than in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. In US without a "legal " migration you cannot get a professional job.