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

 

[moltenmetal]

@JNieman: here are two figures:

1) Intentions of 4th year engineering students in Ontario, surveyed by Ipsos-Reid on behalf of Professional Engineers Ontario. These surveys have shown results which are consistent through numerous years in which this survey has been completed.

2) Table 1: Match rates between education and employment in all the regulated professions in Ontario, from the 2006 Survey of Households. The 2011 Survey of Households, derived from the long-form census, was destroyed by our former Tory government, deliberately- they found it easier to hold ideologically-based positions when there was no pesky data to contradict them. The current government has fixed that for subsequent years, but the destroyed 2011 census will haunt us for years to come.

A few points:

1) Engineering students in 4th year overwhelmingly want to work as engineers.
2) Over twice as many engineering graduates work outside the engineering profession as work within it. In fact, about 33% of engineering graduates in Canada work in areas of employment for which a university degree of any kind, much less an engineering degree, is not required. That's a larger proportion than the ~ 30% of eng grads who work as enginers
3) The ~70% of engineering grads who work outside the profession, earn on average about 20% less than the ~ 30% who work as engineers or engineering managers
4) The match rate between education and employment for engineering is the lowest of all the regulated professions in the country, and not by a small margin.

The match rate decreases with years of experience, as we all know some people previously employed as engineers who leave the profession either by default or by choice. That fraction is also affected by the influence of immigration: while the situation for engineering grads in Canada in composite is bad, the situation for those Canadian engineers who were educated outside Canada is even worse- of that group, only ~19% work within the profession.

All this adds up to only one conclusion: the engineering labour market for engineering here in Ontario and in Canada in general is saturated, has been saturated for some time, and the saturation has been growing steadily for twenty years. It shows no signs of getting substantially better in the next decade, either.

All this information (the graph previously posted, plus the chart and table posted here) may be found in this report, which I've already linked to- by posting the graphs and charts here, I'm trying to reach the people who haven't bothered to read the report yet:

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

The report lists all its references and data sources.

 

[cranky108]

IR, are you saying that every high school is as good as your local high school?

Strange how some high schools have higher levels of teen suicides than others, and there are few reported school problems.

 

[IRstuff]

Mine isn't local, we transferred to a different school district. Nevertheless, every high school in our area offers a substantially larger complement of AP classes than ever before, and even the city high school in our old neighborhood offers a large number of AP classes. And this is on top of the IB classes and tests offered. Now, it could possibly be argued that we're in the "one percent" of high schools, being in a relatively rich county, but there are many such high schools across California.

The US News high school report, which we started following in about 2005 timeframe continues listing a huge number of high schools across the US that produce graduating classes with an AVERAGE of 9 AP tests taken. My old high school was among them, so they amped up their game as well. The bottom line is that the good high schools have gotten better, with better college prep than ever before. Rising tide arguments aside, it's possible that the worst high schools have gotten worse, but I have no information about that.

I can say that EVERY UC and Cal State campus is inundated with applicants, and even UC Merced has no problem finding qualified applicants. Note that UC campuses require the infamous a-g high school curriculum, in addition to high GPAs and SAT test scores. UC San Diego, which is nationally ranked, reportedly had over 90,000 applicants for fall of 2017 and had no issue waitlisting people with 3.6 GPA and 34 on the ACT. What used to be "safety" schools are rejecting qualified applicants.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[cranky108]

Something my wife noted while looking for houses a few years ago. The local crime rates are higher around middle and high schools. So maybe those free periods are useful for some of the kids.

Ever since my daughter took the PSAT test last year, she has had hundreds of pieces of mail from differing universities around the country. And several of which I have never heard of.
More recently my daughter had commented that she did not see any calculus on the SAT test she took.

But when you understand that being a social worker also requires a degree, and it does not pay much, one needs to wonder if some university degrees are worth it.
Economics for sure is not on the high school requirement list. So maybe people realize they can make more money with an engineering degree by doing something else.

I hear truck driving pays well, and without the boss always there.

 

[IRstuff]

"Economics for sure is not on the high school requirement list. "

True, but you can take AP Econ, where offered, which didn't even exist when I went to high school.

But the economics is actually a multiple whammy, given that while there is the requirement for a degree, there's nothing that say that degree has to come from USC or somesuch, but the main issue is that there is such a glut of Psych majors that there's no need to pay them larger salaries.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[canwesteng]

A friend of mine is a social worker and makes almost as much me. This is in Canada though so YMMV. Looking at that table I wonder I didn't do PT or something instead...

 

[CWB1]

Interesting comments all around.

Growing up in NY then living/working elsewhere I have seen firsthand the effects of supply and demand. NY has the proverbial "perfect storm" IMHO, with few exceptions most anywhere you go within the state is <1 hour's drive to a college that offers engineering. The vast majority of them being through the state SUNY system are a great deal for students, live at home or with family cheap and to this day its pretty common for a bachelor's to cost <$30k after all expenses are considered. OTOH, bc of the glut of engineers graduating and industry being taxed out of the state salaries are laughably low. One recent grad I know couldn't "leave home," a BSME only earned him $50k/year, I started $25k higher a decade ago in a dirt cheap section of the Midwest.

One point I feel is rarely mentioned/discussed regarding college degrees and licensure is the difficulty level, or IMHO the lack thereof as compared to the reality of design and development. I have mentored quite a few junior engineers and interns who gave up engineering rather quickly bc they did not enjoy the constant challenges, constant learning, or creativity necessary. Like many colleagues who stuck with the profession only to become lousy engineers, they didn't recognize the difference between being a good student and being a good engineer and weren't willing to put in the time and effort to become the later. To a large extent I believe even folks in engineering tend to overplay the accomplishment of earning a degree or license, nevermind the parents, educators, and other non-engineers. Kids tend to be very trusting so its natural that a certain number go into other professions after graduation.

 

[GregLocock]

The difficulty level is interesting. Although I did harder maths at university, by hand, than I ever have since, in practice, say in DSP, I have to know a lot more than just the equations. Same with, say, statics. At uni the problems are known to be solvable, whereas in the real world the list of unknowns often exceeds the knowns. Not that I do much statics as an end result, but it is the starting point for dynamics.

For instance suppose we want to design a light subframe that will survive driving through a square edged pothole, yet will fail neatly in a front end crash. The crash guys have a couple of dozen supercomputers and years of experience, they don't need to make reasonable estimates, they can calculate what is going on. The pothole people have a couple of strain gauges on the suspension arms and a force measured somewhere, probably not where it is needed, from one test.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

And maybe that's the issue, that so many really don't like the work.

 

[spraytechnology]

Lets be realistic, we are consumer and service society, we hardly make things, most engineering solutions are off the shelf, so why people study engineering now a days is beyond me, is hard and the picture at the end, ain't to pretty.

 

[moltenmetal]

Less engineering required, and vastly more engineering grads being cranked out. Do the math!

 

[cranky108]

"Lets be realistic, we are consumer and service society, we hardly make things, most engineering solutions are off the shelf, so why people study engineering now a days is beyond me, is hard and the picture at the end, ain't to pretty."

The substation across the street does not look like it was off the shelf. And in fact none of our substations look like they were off the shelf.
Maybe parts of it were off the shelf, but it was built by in house crews.

 

[spraytechnology]

So how much was engineering and how much trade work? the later is always a local component.

 

[KENAT]

Not necessarily for systems that can be skid mounted or similar. Sure there'll still be some installation work but potentially a lot less.

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[CWB1]

Lets be realistic, we are consumer and service society, we hardly make things, most engineering solutions are off the shelf, so why people study engineering now a days is beyond me, is hard and the picture at the end, ain't to pretty.

Depends on the definition of "hard" and "pretty." One reason that I enjoy this profession is the variety of both work and people. I've known "engineers" whose day jobs make their undergrad degree seem extremely difficult and others who continually fight a steep learning curve with new technology. Along a similar vein, I know junior engineers earning $50k and several engineers-turned-execs that earn $1M+ annually.

 

[graybeach]

What about siting of the substation? You can't just plop those things anywhere unless you don't care if they get covered by several feet of water during heavy storms. Just this takes quite a lot of engineering. Sometimes new trenching and building penetrations are needed when changing out equipment, and can the existing bus take the new configuration? This all takes engineering too. Lots of fun!

 

[spraytechnology]

For sure there will be some engineering local components that cannot be outsource especially in structural/civil domain but the discussion drifted to engineering in general. Regards.

 

[aap2]

Less engineering required, and vastly more engineering grads being cranked out. Do the math!

That smells like lower wages or emigration.

 

[Illbay]

DISAGREE. As a result of the "Obama economy" - now documented to be the worst in history - I have been out of work as an engineer now for a year and a half. No job in sight.

And I know a lot of other engineers in my same predicament. One of my problems: I'm "too old."

"No one is completely useless. He can always serve as a bad example." --My Dad ca. 1975

 

[spraytechnology]

IILBAY (((("No one is completely useless. He can always serve as a bad example." --My Dad ca. 1975 ))))

I like it, will probably remember it. Thanks. In my case the few opportunities that come across my desk require relocation or being away from home for periods of time. Definitely, good opportunities are far from abound.