Are STEM Workers Overpaid? 9

[CheckerHater]

MBAs don't like that because in their mind it hurts their bottom line.

They don’t see it (or pretend not to see) because gains and losses are in different accounts.
Force your engineer to release raw, unfinished design, report completing your R&D 2 weeks early, saving money.
Then, because of the flaw that could be caught given some time, re-work or even scrap mold that cost as much as you pay your engineer in a year. The money still coming from the owner’s pocket, but thru different channel, so everybody is happy.

 

[moltenmetal]

HornTootin- we're our own worst enemies. We settle for fees or salary when we should be taking a slice of the value we create. And we also don't like to hear that our skills are a dime a dozen - which in market terms, they certainly are. That's why our compensation has fallen to the basement of the licensed professions.

Should we dissuade the best and brightest from a career in engineering? It's like anything. If it's your true passion, go for it- the top 10% of engineers, similar to any profession, can make a very nice living. If it isn't your passion, take a look at the stats and make up your mind on a rational basis. Smart kids have options.

I certainly wouldn't recommend engineering to a kid who wasn't passionate about what engineers actually do. The risk and investment in educational effort and cost are disproportionately high to the monetary reward, compared with many other options they could pursue, passion aside. There are no guaranteed meal tickets for fresh grads any more, but engineering has the lowest match rate of any of the professions in Canada, i.e. fewer eng grads work as engineers than teaching school grads work as teachers or anything else resembling a true profession. That should tell you something, and it isn't that engineering is such a fabulous preparation as an educational path that it makes you qualified for all sorts of work. Surveys of 4th year eng students indicate that the overwhelming majority of them- over 90% of them- want a career in engineering when they graduate. Most of them don't end up there, and it's not all by choice.

 

[GregLocock]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder what the picture is around the globe of engineering graduates who want to work as engineers but have not found a suitable position within a year (say) of graduating?

http://www.engineersmedia.com.au/journals/aaee/pdf/AJEE_16_2_Trevelyan.pdf

seems to suggest that in 2006 31% of engineering graduates in Australia worked as engineers, and perhaps the same again in related fields. That doesn't answer my own question, I'll do some more digging.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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

 

[rterickson]

One more article in the IEEE series by the original author:

[link]http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/the-changing-pattern-of-stem-worker-employment[/url]

 

[ScottyUK]

greg,

Any use?

http://www.theiet.org/factfiles/education/skills2013-page.cfm?type=pdf

This took forever to load and I got sick of waiting for it:

http://www.engc.org.uk/ecukdocuments/internet/document library/Engineering UK 2012.pdf

Good luck!

 

[moltenmetal]

GregLocock: the 2006 figures for Canada were that 29% of eng grads worked as engineers, and 42% total worked as either engineers or "managers"- that could be anything from CEO to manager of a fast food restaurant I guess. They take 42% as the "match rate".

I don't have the exact number at hand, but it was something around 20% of eng grads worked in areas for which they were obviously overqualified by education: as technicians or technologists, in the trades etc. That's a very high rate of people who are obviously under-employed. Of the remaining occupational categories subdivided in the StatsCan data, it's tough to know whether those people are properly employed or underemployed.

Our Tory federal government likes to make decisions based on ideology, and doesn't like pesky data getting in the way. Accordingly, they killed the mandatory long-form census in 2011, so the 2006 census data is the last good data we're getting. Try doing national forecasting and planning on the basis of a census where only those who really feel like it bother to fill out the survey- it's nuts.

 

[cranky108]

Why aren't these people discussing if sports players or CEO's are over paid?

 

[TheTick]

I can not think of a single product launch that failed because engineers' salaries were too high.