Fewer Engineers/More Work 28

[metengr]

Has anybody heard or have read stats on the number of engineering graduates per year, and trends?

I was talking with my friends kid the other day about the engineering profession (20 years for me). I know that the job market is highly dependant on location. However, in my discussions with him, it seemed like fewer students are entering engineering schools after the computer dot.com bubble blew up. Does it seem like most college students want to make easy money the easy way versus working as engineers?

If this is the case, I would expect a critical shortage of engineers in the next 5 to 10 years.

 

[Tobalcane]

metengr,

I think the stats that the Department of Labor (DOL) issued is for the whole country. Your state may be experiencing a good trend right now, but for the rest of the country it is not a good sign. The twenty new hires you mentioned were probably the total new nuclear engineers hired for the year out of the whole country. Incidentally, if Exelon Corp is the largest nuclear generator, 20 new hires should not be a big number. When I was hired by my first company (which was only third tier in defense companies), there where approximately 100+ engineering college grad/professional Mechanical Engineer new hires that were hired thru out the company. If Exelon Corp is the largest nuclear generator and only hired twenty people, I would think that they can hire a lot more than that if Exelon was on the up swing. If the nuclear designing companies all of a sudden started getting new projects to build new nuclear plants in the USA, I could see the trend of hiring nuclear engineers reversing. But, because of negative public views of the power source, I don’t really see new nuclear plants being built in the USA in the near future. Because of this, the DOL speculates that since there is no real growths (new nuclear plants) the jobs for nuclear engineers will be stagnate. That is how I interpreted…

http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos036.htm

The nuclear power plant industry is not like other industries were new projects/contracts/business come along and they have to be staffed by new people. Hence a growing company. If there are no new nuclear power pants being built, were will the new jobs come from? Right now it seems that the only jobs for nuclear engineers are to replace an aging work force or people that left the nuclear industry.

This is just my naïve small view opinion.


Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane

 

[Lorentz]

Hi profengmen!

With regards to my questions 2 and 3, I have to agree with metengr who started the thread:

Engineering Apprenticeship
thread730-99415

He states:

"One improvement that I would like to see with the engineering profession, is a mandatory requirement for engineering apprenticeship.

Now metengr and I have points we disagree on, but if you scroll up to the beginning of this thread you will see that he has 20 years experience. He also has received 105 TipMaster of the week votes since he joined this forum in October of 2003 (check out his profile). I think he may know a thing or two.

One other piece of advice I will give to any high school students considering engineering: rent the movie "Private Benjamin" before you talk to any "professional" counsellors who are paid university employees.

Have a good night everyone!

 

[moltenmetal]

QCE:

You argue that there's no difference between "95 and 96% employment". The sample size in this case was very large, but let's take that as being correct. Why would it be acceptable for the employment situation for graduates of engineering, a professional program, to be even approximately EQUAL to the employment situation for the average university graduate?

The key is the UNEMPLOYMENT rate. These numbers are more sensitive to the hypothesis you're testing- the "employment" numbers are damped by a systematic factor- the fact that most Canadians, much less most university-educated Canadians, are indeed working for a living.

Even more key and harder to argue with are the RATIOS of unemployment rates amongst graduates of various professional programs. Have a look at that report, and I challenge you to find a professional program which has an unemployment rate even HALF what it is currently for engineers. Most professional programs have 0-1% unemployment after two years, while ours is over 5%.

I'm not advocating that we shut down the engineering schools and close the borders until the current over-supply of engineers are fully employed- that's a rights issue and a total non-starter for many reasons including the one you've mentioned. But clearly, increasing engineering school enrollments and recruitment of engineers for immigration to Canada are at best stupid given our current supply situation.

What I am advocating is the collection and dissemination of unbiased data on this issue- and an active countering of the media myth about the shortage of engineers with this data. Every prospective grad and immigrant to our profession should be able to make their decision whether or not to enter our profession on the basis of sound data. Right now, most engineering immigrants to Canada come expecting to be snapped up by a thirsty job market, only to discover that there's no engineering opportunity for them when they arrive- they quite rightly feel that they've been lured here and then ripped off. Young women who were recruited to the profession and graduate to find no job prospects in engineering even six months after graduation, rightly feel that they were misled.

This myth of the shortage of engineers has to STOP- and if we engineers don't get the message ourselves, can we expect the rest of society to figure this one out on their own.

 

[dporte17]

moltenmetal:

Well put! We will not have any success as a profession advocating radical changes, but making known the reality of the situation might help the situation. There are still the forces at work who like the oversupply of engineers, but unfortunately they will always be there. I wonder why this isn't a major agenda item for OSPE and CCPE?

Dave

 

[ischgl99]

So much pessimism. I would recommend to any high school student who showed the interest to go into engineering. He can always change majors to something he is more interested in, but probably can't switch into engineering very easily. An engineering degree also is the best one you can graduate with, it opens many more doors then other degrees, that is if we are not too narrow minded in what we are willing to do. My wife did exactly that, she graduated as a chemical engineer and went into computers and is doing very well. She is willing to travel to the customer site for testing and commissioning, so is much more valuable then the developers, whose jobs are being sent to India. She will never have to worry about her job being outsourced. There is also the small matter of all the baby boomers retiring in the next few years. There will be a shortage of all jobs soon. My dad's company is a good example. They have not hired for years and when they were bought out, 8 out of 12 engineers took early retirement. I think that is going to happen very soon with alot of companies. Without immigration or outsourcing, many companies are not going to be able to hire enough employees.

The job maket here is doing great, it has rebounded very nicely the past few months. I don't consider now any different then when I graduated in 1990. The market rebounded then and it will now. Engineering students are always at a disadvantage since they are making a bet on where the job market will be in 4-5 years. Nobody can predict that. Do what you enjoy and the money will follow.

Saying there is a shortage or oversupply of engineers needs to be qualified. Which engineering jobs? To me, a civil engineers job might as well be an accountant, I am equally not qualified for either. When Civil jobs are booming, then it stands to reason that other segments of the engineering job market may not be. Over time, it all works itself out. If you don't like the prospects of your chosen field, then get the experience that makes you stand out.

I don't agree with the mandatory apprenticeship. If the student has the drive to do it, then great for him, but I don't think the students should be forced into it. Besides the companies don't want to do it. If we want to make the engineering profession more respectable, then certification needs to be mandatory, such as each graduating senior needs to pass the EIT to get his degree. This will help reduce the number of qualified engineers since the passing rate is relatively low. Too many companies are lax with what they consider an engineer, the last company I worked for gave the title of Process Engineer to someone with only a business degree and called the service techs, without any college, engineers. Until something is done about that, companies will hire anyone they choose and call them an engineer, resulting in a decline in our salaries and respect.

Mike Bensema

http://www.dutchmenservices.com

 

[moltenmetal]

We engineers often talk about how useful the engineering degree is as a stepping stone to other work. For some people that's undoubtedly true- and for some, it's even by choice! Engineers do make good patent lawyers, medical researchers etc. with extra training- and some can fall back on jobs like computer programming or even the trades. But justifying an engineering education on that basis is the "new liberal arts" approach to what was, is and SHOULD BE a professional education in its own right. In Canada, all the data I've seen demonstrates that engineering is unique amongst self-regulating professions in regard to the terrible job prospects for its grads in their own field of study. And it's wasteful of our collective resources to train and import more engineers than our workforce can use- it serves nobody's interests except those of the employers of engineers.

Ask the kids in 1st year engineering whether they'd still be there if they thought they'd have a tough time finding a job as an engineer when they graduate!

If we actually feel that way, we should be broadcasting this message from the rooftops of the universities: "Hey, guys- forget about this being a professional education or actual job training- when you've put in your four years of suffering and debt accumulation, be prepared to find work doing something else or go back to school to be trained for something more likely to get you a decent job". To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best.

As to the assertion that things are no worse now than they were in 1990- think again. I graduated in '90 and entered the job market in '91 after I finished my Master's. That year, I was one of 6,800 engineering grads in Canada, looking for work with roughly 1,300 engineering immigrants. And '91 was a much tougher job market than '90 was. There was certainly no shortage of engineers in either year.

Fast forward to 2001: ~8,700 Canadian eng grads, looking for work with ~15,800 engineering immigrants!

Canada's engineering school enrollment matched our country's GDP and overall Canadian jobs growth over the period (~17-20% each), while engineering immigration increased TWELVE FOLD and total number of engineers entering the workforce per year grew THREE-FOLD.

Input minus output equals accumulation!

... and yes, this IS on OSPE's agenda as a major issue. But the organization is so poorly funded that it can't do much about it- though it's doing what it can to get the message out.

 

[Lorentz]

Well put moltenmetal!

I would also caution students who think they can just give engineering a try, and if it does not work out easily transfer into another field. Check out the thread:

To teach or not to teach??
thread731-93283

There you will see that unemployed engineers cannot fall back on a career teaching at a High School level. In some cases engineers will receive NO credit for any of the math or physics courses they took as part of their engineering program. (However, I do know of several math, physics and computer science majors who were able to transfer credits into an engineering program.)

 

[Lorentz]

Hi moltenmetal!

I would like to thank you for providing a link to the valuable survey:

http://www.cou.on.ca/publications/2003 Graduate Survey.pdf

It is so useful, I think you have justly earned your place at the top of the MVP list. My only complaint about the survey is that it deals only with Ontario grads, and not Canada as a whole.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I know of several math, physics and computer science majors who were able to transfer into an engineering program. The survey shows that job opportunities in these fields are poorer than in engineering, which explains the migration.

I also find it interesting that while Law grads fare better than engineers in the first 6 months, at the two year mark they are worse off. My guess is that this is due to some Law grads failing to pass the Bar.

Do you know if similar surveys exist tracking employment of graduates from technical institutes?

 

[havesealwilltravel]

Thank you for your latest post. It was informative and presented facts. What this thread needs is facts. Ergo, you get a star. I'm from the U.S., but we face a similar employment situation.

The statistics I would like to see (if anyone has them) is unemployment or under-employment of engineers. Jobs are easier to get when you're young and relatively low paid. Also, younger people are more enthusiastic and more easily conned, layoffs and stagnant salaries tend to dampen enthusiasm and increase skepticism.

For a pessimistic and humorous treatment of engineering employment go to Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists or

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/

A quote from this website which I find pertinent is “We are all migrant workers in the data fields...”

From my experience, when an engineer gets older and reaches a higher pay level, he is likely pushed out of an organization in favor of a younger (cheaper) employee. Following his or her expulsion and if the engineer is over 50, the engineer typically accepts a lower paid position and remains under-employed until retirement. Also, retirement generally comes when he cannot find another engineering job and refuses to work at a fast food restaurant. Some engineers still enjoy a traditional career followed by retirement but this situation is becoming rare for the typical engineer.

The common “tuity-fruity” response is that an engineer must constantly increase his skills and remain current. A prudent engineer realizes that even if he remains current, there is a maximum skill set that any particular engineering job requires. To possess multiple skill sets and to be able to do many different jobs may increase employment flexibility slightly, but an employer will only pay for the specific skill set he needs. A glut of engineers reduces engineering services to a commodity market and in a commodity market price, and only price, govern.

I have a problem with people who present engineering in an optimistic but unrealistic manner. Showing a high school kid the CNN Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge and telling him that, if he becomes an engineer, he will design structures of this magnitude is less than totally honest. Planning a career on such information is tantamount to gambling with the same odds of payoff. You might as well him that he can grow up to become president of the United States (or Prime Minister of Canada). It is possible but not very likely.

A very, very realistic presentation of the engineering situation is given in a book “ The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder. This book should be required reading the first semester of any engineering education. It presents engineering in a realistic light. The book presents a true story. Data General Corp. enters into a “crunch” program to catch up to and exceed a new line of computers introduced by Digital Equipment Corp. Data General's survival depends on the success of this project. Following a truly heroic effort by the engineering staff, management and marketing take control the product and the engineers are quickly pushed out. You feel their pain. They save the company and all they get is a paycheck. They weren’t even paid for overtime!!!! If you’re in computers or software, you will identify with this book!!!! I did.

 

[havesealwilltravel]

Please me for entering back-to-back posts but I just found an interesting site concerning the emploment of older software engineers. It deals only with software engineers, but maybe it can be extrapolated to engineering in general. I think it can.

The article is “Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage” which was given as Testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee by Dr. Norman Matloff . The link is:

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html#faq9

It is very interesting.

 

[Lorentz]

Hi dannym!

Two excellent posts, I wish I could give you more stars.

The Pulitzer Prize-Winner "Soul of a New Machine" was first published in 1981. I wonder what became of the young engineers who worked on the project? Perhaps Tracy Kidder could do an update?

 

[metengr]

Facts on off-shoring of white-collar jobs, and affects on college grads;

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguide_offshoring_faq

 

[Lorentz]

Hi metengr!

Thanks for the link, the study presented there is an excellent source on this issue, and even touches on the effect of productivity gains.

But, would you not now agree that your friend's kid (especially if he has no special interest in engineering) should definitely explore OTHER careers?

 

[metengr]

Lorenz;
My friends kid will do what he desires regardless of my input. Like this kid, I have two daughters both attending the University of IL. Figure on most college students changing their majors about 3 times, on average. With that said, my older daughter is studying to become a Speech Pathologist, the younger daughter is undeclared, but leaning toward history/law. All I want is for these two kids to find themselves professional jobs and fend for themselves.

As for me, I am very fortunate - I have my health, and am gainfully employed as an engineer.

 

[cudaracer]

Hello All,
I've been watching this post with interest over the past couple of days, especially to the comments regarding the power side. I have worked in the power industry for over the past ten years, albeit a lonely designer, but in the industry never the less. I was laid off for the second time in my career in the end of June, and have been looking for work ever since. I was in substation transmission and distribution for the past three years, and as far as new jobs in the midwest they are few and far betweem. In regards to the amount of work on the Nuclear side, it seems that most of the current work is involved in the security end of things. I wish I could be more optomistic, but it doesn't look like there's anything on the radar screen. The three major engineering firms in Chicago that specialize in power are pretty much in the same boat.

In regards to the decrease in the colleges, I think its in response to the fact that alot of the jobs are already being off-shored and the students realize that. It's a shame that this country had already off-shore the manufacturing jobs that once kept the country employed, and is now starting to off-shore the engineering end. I think the srvice industy will be the only one left with any stability in the future. That is if everyone still has a job to afford them....hopefully things will get better after November...
Don

 

[Lorentz]

Hi cudaracer!
Thanks for sharing your first-hand observations on the power industry. Hope things turn around for you.


metengr:
This time I gave you star.

To All Who participated in this thread:
I hope we all either find happiness in the fields we studied, or if that's not to be, perhaps we may find greater success in fields we rejected back in our High School days.

I'll leave you with a quote from my favorite book Horse Sense by Al Ries and Jack Trout:

"Ray Kroc was 51 years old before he saw his first McDonald's restaurant. Harvey Mackay was 54 before he wrote his first book. Harlan Sanders was 65 before he sold his first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.

Success knows no age"

Good Luck to Us All!

 

[ischgl99]

How is all of this any different then any other career? Old engineers are not the only ones forced out of a company for younger blood.

What should the high school student wanting to major in a technical field study if you think engineering is too overcrowded and the job prospects poor? Physics? Well, many of the lower level jobs I see posted around here want any technical degree for an engineering position. If fact, a good friend graduated with a physics degree and is the engineering manager of his company. What is the solution then? Steer everyone into acounting?

As to the comments about increasing your skills to stay employed, it's not your skills, it's the value to the company that is important. A salesman proves his value all the time based on how many sales he makes, an engineer is a cost until proven otherwise. How many engineers do you know that communicate their value to the company, or even keep track of it?

I maintain my position, I will always recommend an engineering education to someone who has the interest in it. Even if the field is more competitive then before and the salaries are not as good as they used to be, it still is better then a field you don't enjoy.

 

[moltenmetal]

mbensema:

As I've said before, there will always be a place in our profession for those who love it. What I disagree with is trying to promote the profession by recruiting more people to it- that's a counter-productive exercise for sure.

A student with a technical inclination and grades good enough to get into an engineering program here in Canada has lots of options open to them. If they don't know what an engineer is, or have no particular inclination toward applied science, they need not study engineering- there are lots of other things they can study without adding to the ranks of a profession with a miserable over-supply situation and less than average job prospects for its graduates!

Here in Canada, students pay only about 25% of the full cost of their education. I don't see the sense for our society to subsidize a particular professional education for more people than the job market can use, such that they need to go back to school for yet more subsidized education to find gainful employment.

As far as being "greyed" out of a job, this is a particular problem in engineering. It happens because we let it happen- it happens because of over-supply relative to demand. Who can blame an employer for replacing expensive help with cheaper help when there are thousands knocking on the door looking for a job? I've never met a doctor who was greyed out of a job, and last time I checked, there's a fair bit of technological advancement in that field to keep track of too.

As far as calculating one's value to one's employer, we agree 100%. Engineers are extraordinarily under-valued because they fail to do just that. As a project manager for my firm, I KNOW in dollars and cents exactly what I'm worth to the company, and am not afraid to use that fact when negotiating salary. I recommend that every engineer figure out their value double-quick, and if it can't be determined in their particular job I recommend they consider finding another where that value can be more easily established- before your employer forces your hand.

What annoys me so much is the professional prima donnas out there who view engineering as some kind of noble calling which is somehow above and beyond economic reality. Members of professions like ours who generate tremendous value and wealth for society DESERVE proper compensation for their effort. We accept responsibilities of self-regulation as a profession, and in return for that voluntary acceptance of a duty of care for the non-engineering public, we are ENTITLED to certain rights. These include a restricted area of practice, and the ability to choose who (and how many) we accept as members.

Here in Canada, the prima donnas among us are constantly reminding us of our public responsibility and ever trying to increase the standards to which we hold ourselves accountable- but they do NOTHING to expand our restricted area of practice. In fact, they do precious little to defend the areas of practice we already hold from encroachment from non-professionals and non-engineers. The other professions don't suffer from this stupidity- they know which side their bread is buttered on.

 

[Lorentz]

Hi mbensema!

You ask:

"How is all of this any different then any other career?"

Well if you check the survey provided by moltenmetal:

http://www.cou.on.ca/publications/2003 Graduate Survey.pdf

you will see that in fields like medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary medecine etc. it IS different.

That is because these fields have regulated themselves so that are REAL professions. Naive High School students enroll in engineering under the illusion that they will have a lifestyle more or less equivalent to other professions, but many will not (and future prospects for first world engineers are worse than ever before).

Also, you state:

"Even if the field is more competitive then before and the salaries are not as good as they used to be, it still is better then a field you don't enjoy.".

The problem here was pointed out in one of dannym's posts:

"I have a problem with people who present engineering in an optimistic but unrealistic manner. Showing a high school kid the CNN Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge and telling him that, if he becomes an engineer, he will design structures of this magnitude is less than totally honest."

So when you encourage High School students to study engineering, are you presenting only the best cases? I know of one electrical engineer who works all day using FEM software to design distribution transformers, and another who drives around in a truck all day performing turns ratio tests and taking oil samples from transformers. The first is happy, the second says: "I went to university for this?"

This is why I think only co-op engineering programs should be accredited. It gives students an early exposure to what common engineering jobs are really like, and they can switch fields before getting in to deep if they find they have been "oversold."

 

[moltenmetal]

Minor correction: that pointy product of Toronto structural engineering brilliance you're referring to is the Canadian National tower, not the CNN tower- it has nothing whatsoever to do with that particular American news organ. It stands on Canadian National Railroad property and I believe they were a major initial investor.

Lorentz: I agree completely about co-op education. Essential for engineers, particularly those who often go straight from school into the consulting business (something else I feel should be strongly discouraged).