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Japan "Running Out of Engineers"
bfwebster writes "A story in the New York Times reports that Japan, a country that rebuilt itself as a technological power after World War II, now faces an increasing shortage of college graduates with degrees in science and engineering. Says the article: 'By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers.' The article goes on to point out that the overall trend of waning interest in science and technology has been going on for 'almost two decades' and that the shortage is made worse by the traditional reluctance of Japanese companies to hire and use foreign workers. The US has had a similar trend for quite some time: 'Undergraduate engineering enrollment declined through most of the 1980s and 1990s, rose from 2000 through 2003, and declined slightly in recent years.'"
Yet just like America, Japan is gradually raising the virtual borders on immigration for gaijin (foreigners) even for those with engineering degrees.
In the mid to late 70's the university I was attending seemed to actively discourage students from majoring in the sciences and planning to go the engineering route. Numerous studies were quoted to us and posted on departmental bulletin boards in some cases. One that I particularly recall in essence but not in specifics was one study stating the numbers of PHDs and engineers driving cabs and selling hot dogs on the streets of New York City. Essentially they were stating that due to the cutbacks in defence speading post Vietnam and with NASA cutting back as well, then adding in the effects of reduced tax cuts for research and capital improvements that you would be underemployed or unemployed if you majored in the sciences or set out for engineering certification. Many of the students listening to that would have been graduating during the 80s when the reductions started showing up.
It's also a matter of
A) rewards. If you're going to put 10x more work into something, then you'd expect the rewards to be worth it. That doesn't mean only salaries (though that sure helps too), but also stuff like overall job quality, social recognition of your efforts, etc. I'd say that in the west, for various reasons and to various degrees, all of those gradually declined.
We went for example from a culture which put its intellectual elites on pedestals, to a culture where being technically illiterate or even outright stupid, is cool and fashionable. In fact, if you show any intelectual interests or aptitudes, it's kinda mean of you and insensitive to your below-average neighbours/classmates/etc.
In programming alone we went from being those wizards doing high tech stuff, to being outright disconsidered. Nowadays for the average outsider it's not "I don't know how to do the things he does", it's more like "I have a life, I don't have time for that crap" or "yeah, the neighbour's 12 year old can do that kind of stuff." The idea from the 90's that you can just retrain an unemployed pizza-delivery-guy or burger flipper off the street, and he'll be just as good as those snotty CS and engineering graduates anyway, also didn't do much for recognition. It was hammered in everyone's head that you _are_ no better than him, and he could have had your job too if only he could be arsed to take one of those two-week java courses.
Now not all countries are at the same point, and not all went in that direction as fast, but that was the general direction all went slowly.
That's one reason to put in the extra effort, that went down the drain right there. For a lot of people that criterion is now actually a disincentive, since all that extra effort might actually _lower_ their prestige in the community instead of raising it.
B) Rampant age-ism also doesn't help. Back then, sure, I was young, I thought I'd never get old. When 15 years is your entire life so far, and you probably remember only 10, living another 45 years to 60 seems like a bloody eternity. No point worrying about something _that_ far in the future. Now I see perfectly competent programmers pushed aside or into a corner, because some PHB learned the mantra that only the smart young kids are any good.
If I had a kid, I'd tell him to stay well away of that field. Chances are you _will_ live to _at_ _least_ your 40's, even if you chain-smoke and get to twice your idea weight and go alcoholic too. If you want a job where you start being discriminated against as early as the 30's, heck, go into prostitution or porn instead. (And considering some bosses I've occasionally seen, prostitution might even be the more dignified job.)
C) It's also a matter of, well, excitement.
In all science or engineering domains, there was a time where it looked like there's so much interesting stuff to do or discover, and only the sky is the limit. (Or in aerospace not even the sky.)
In programming, for example, when I looked at some primitive games or programs on the old ZX-81 or later ZX-Spectrum, I thought, "I can do better." Often I actually could. Heck, I could even paint my own sprites by hand, although I'm no graphics artist, and they still looked good enough at that resolution.
Nowadays, if I look at a modern game, well, there's just not the same sensation. Duly noted, nowadays about half can be modded, so you can still tempt someone to programming that way. But for a while even that wasn't the case.
Ok, so that's only games, but the same applies to any other programming domain. At some point you could have been the guy who created the next big language, wrote the OS for some underpowered mini, or did the next great maths thing with a computer, or designed the next computer itself, or whatever. Nowadays you'll be a cog in a 20-people team writing the front-end to some database app.
Or if we move away from programming, as I was saying, the same applies to any other engineering domain. At one point we
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Funny, I just got back from the SODEC trade show in Tokyo last week promoting our company's outsourcing services... As someone whose company which is engaged in providing software outsourcing services to Japanese companies, I can personally attest to the barriers to entry involved in doing this. Language is a serious one: while we would like to think that we are motivated enough to try to learn, it is a very tough language to try to master, and misunderstandings can be costly. We were humbled when we were handed a Japanese software specification which took us a month to reasonably understand but a only week to implement and test. Japanese also seem to have an entrenched attitude of looking down on foreigners, and having more than a little skepticism that the people in companies such as ours will be able to adapt to their ways of thinking and doing things. So far, we haven't seriously disappointed our existing customers, but still, even a brick-headed software engineer like me can sense their skepticism. They are also a lot less flexible than other outsourcing markets that we have had the experience of working with. These are some of the problems that we've encountered, but still, we do think that going into the market for the long haul will be profitable. They really have few choices to remedy their situation with the way things are going.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Japan's birthrate has been dropping, and the number of young kids entering school as well. Fewer students means fewer engineering students, fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer firemen, etc. Japan and Europe are going to be hard-pressed to keep up their standards of living with shrinking enrollments. It will hit the US sometime later, although we seem to be okay with the "boomer echo" generation.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
It hasn't been too long since I made it out of undergrad, and I distinctly remember there being a "School of Management" there with a Management major. I knew quite a few people in that school, and the short-sidedness you speak of appeared to be a cornerstone of their Management education.
I'm a bachelor of science in organic chemistry, but I've been making websites for money for the past decade, because I became tired of begging for underpaid jobs in engineering.
I've been hearing this litany in Germany for quite some time now. Not enough expert workers, no engineers, no IT people, Jada-Jada-Jada. Every 5 years or so the industry goes through the same bullshiting ritual.
How else is it then that I'm struggling to survive as a freelance Software Developer with 8 years of experience under my belt? Why is it that I'm not even considered because I don't have a grade - allthough I can easyly out-develop any graduate I've met?
This whining is nothing but a salary lowering measure. The best that will happen for true experts is that salaries and benefits will reach the old levels.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Australia has been resonating with cries of a national shortage of engineers for years now.
In telecommunications in particular, we have floundered. Some of that is due to the influence of Telstra, our AT&T-equivalent, as they pull every managerial and political stunt from their bag of tricks to maintain their monopoly on ancient telecommunication infrastructure, and to prevent others from installing modern networks. The rest is due to a long succession of misguided governments who believe we should not aspire to high-tech and manufacturing. Evidently, our fate is to forever remain a primary producer, hacking off whatever LIMITED national assets we have to China at mates' rates.
All of our universities, even the most prestigious, have now become no more than diploma mills for international students whose parents buy their degrees, and who will then most likely head home to wallow in Asia's newfound wealth. At a conservative estimate, 90% of my classmates fall into this category.
Everyone wins, right?
The pollies win because they can claim diplomatic victories, that they are securing a veritable torrent of incoming finances from overseas.
The universities win, because they receive by far the largest portion of said funding.
All of 15% AT MOST of those in my course will remain here after we graduate, and two-thirds of that lot are the Australians. And we look on in grim amusement as our industries lament our lack of engineering talent.
Without a voice to represent us, the more progressive among my classmates watch in dismay as our riches, our educations, our futures are sold off to the highest bidders.
Comp sci has been an achilles heel in Japanese education.
Not even at the college level will you find decent computer courses that can mass produce decent programmers. Japanese is naturally a less abstraction oriented language, and in school, they get attached to the details and technicalities, making the courses boring, difficult, and alienating, not to mention unproductive. What they really need to teach is how to abstract those details away and how to be constructive. This is done creatively, not logically.
Then there is the whole video game situation. These programmers don't mix with other industries, so it acts like a huge black hole for programming talent by not sharing their talent pool with the software industry.
Overpriced and incompetent, software houses in Japan have wrecked havok on Japanese businesses since day one, and now pretty much everyone is just scared to try anything.
I teach at a foreign language university in the Tokyo area. My students get hired to become software engineers pretty regularly. No experience. No interest. They just scored right on the company aptitude test.
See, that's the thing that every single person on this thread is misunderstanding: In Japan, university is just a kind of finishing school. You work your ass off to get in, then play guitar in a band or play American football or some other club activity for 3 years, then spend your last year of university going to cattle-call interviews for all the companies you're interested in. You should probably have your job--the job you will have until you retire, I might add--worked out by about the beginning of your last semester.
Companies do not look at your GPA. They don't look at your transcripts. All they really care about is the name of your school and how you interviewed and how you did on the aptitude test. If they want you, they'll make an offer, and if you take it, they will take care of the rest.
For the rest of your life.
All you have to give in return is, well, the rest of your life. All of it. Every waking hour (and by the time they're done with you, that might be 20 a day). Until you're a hollowed out shell of a human who hates life and chainsmokes through rotten teeth in a stained suit at a barbecued chicken place, slamming back beer and shochu until you've worked up enough of a drunk to stumble back to your home and crash, avoiding all contact with the family you barely know, but despise nonetheless.
Okay, that's a bit of satire, but there's some truth in it, to be sure.
If I were a Japanese kid today, I'd be one of these supposed "dropouts" (called "freeters," for some reason) who just run from temp job to temp job and moonlight at a bar. They make enough money to be happy, not enough to have to pay that much in taxes or health insurance, and they can have a life anytime they want.
Who the hell would want to be a salaryman in Japan?
The likely problem, I think, is that Japanese corporate culture has finally been rejected by the generation of kids who have grown up knowing nothing but the rich Japan and don't have the fearful, hard-headed, overworking mentality of their parents.
That's my reading of the situation, anyway.
I work at a Japanese game company where salaries are even more shit than at other areas of business.
My experience has been mostly the same as the parent; the young guys are treated like garbage, expected to put in long hours (except we DON'T get overtime pay), and the pay scale is exponential toward the president who is likely making 20x the pay of an entry level worker. I might expect that in a huge company but this is a small-ish business.
I too came into the job with experience and am getting what I am calling the "gaijin exclusion bonus" to a degree... the expectations are not the same as for my Japanese coworkers. I can avoid the forced overtime and get paid better than people with far more experience. Which is sad. My advice is for anyone who comes to Japan to work in engineering - or perhaps any field - to play that up as much as possible. Do not try to be Japanese. You might get a few pats on the back from the boss but it will not significantly develop your career unless you plan on working like that for the rest of your career here.
I took a near 50% drop in pay to come here for the experience of living and working overseas but I can't see a long term investment in a career here. If Japan doesn't have enough engineers and they don't want to pay skilled foreigners what they are worth then they are going to have serious problems. My plan from now is to learn the language, experience the business practices of a foreign culture, then get the hell out and get paid what I know I can earn internationally.
And I should know--I left exactly that kind of job at an NTT subsidiary (despite having that rarest of rarities: an intelligent, competent, understanding boss) for a much smaller software company, and negotiated a salary more than twice what I had been making earlier, even taking into account that I couldn't live in a $70/month apartment anymore. It's totally possible to make a decent living here if you're willing to push for it.
Of course, given the way Japanese society works, I imagine most people here don't even consider the possibility of salary negotioations.
The Japanese aren't interested in bringing foreigners into the country. They prefer Japan to have its culture preserved no matter what the price. Thus, to compensate for the shortage of people due to the population becoming old and having less and less children, they prefer to invest strongly in robotics. Nowadays there are personal robots over there to do things, such as house cleaning and other unpleasant jobs, that in countries which opt for immigration are left to immigrants.
I'm not saying they're right or wrong, it's just the way they want it to be, and it's different from the way chosen by Europe or the USA. But one thing is certain: by pursuing this policy Japan has no "risk" of becoming "less Japanese" over time, while Europe is slowly becoming more Slavic, Arabic, Latin etc. each day. Whether "going international" is ultimately good or bad for Europe on the long term, or whether "going ethnic" is ultimately good or bad for Japan on the long term, is something we'll only discover when that long term is over.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Sometimes I share your sense of despair, but not often.
/always/ going to be "the next big thing". There is /always/ going to be innovation. In fact, I'd say that until today's technology becomes common place you aren't really /primed/ for the next big thing. Maybe engine design has to become as boring as applying formulas and tweaking injection pressures before the next big leap in engine technology comes along.
I used to work with an engineer who constantly lamented he was not an engineer in the late 1800s, when many of the now-common mechanical mechanisms were being invented. He too felt he could have "been someone" if only he lived then.
But the thing is, there is
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I work for a London University; I'm one of their IT technical monkeys, with some serverside and strategic work thrown in. I get to call myself SysAdmin, and they get their computers fixed. It's not an ideal job, but I enjoy it, and, more importantly, it's possible to buy a home based on the wage packet. If you can bite the bullet and admit to yourself that you're not going to get that lovely three-bedroom detached house with a double garage until you're in your forties, then life can be good. I live in East London, and I own a flat there. Even with the stupid house prices, even with the crippling interest rates, even with the ever-increasing food and energy bills, it's still possible to live, and do so comfortably.
You're technical people. Get used to the fact that you'll never earn anything like what a CEO's PA does: they've got more on their plate thn we give them credit for. Not only have they got to organise a capricious meatsack with an ego the size of God, they've got to interpret the whims and rants of said person into intelligible commands for their minions. On top of that, they've got to look good while doing it.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not belittling our associated trades: I love what I do, and the day that I give it up for something else will be a sad one. The 'engineer as demi-god' days are over, for now, because we don't have the same sociological drives anymore: we're not in a post-war depression, there is no cold war, there is no great enemy that's immediately tangible. We are, currently, comfortable, aside from the self-imposed economic problems.
While we're not as socially respected as we once were, I don't believe that we were ever part of a richer social subset, unless employed by a government program of some description. Culturally, we're more used to luxury now. The traditional view of an engineer/technician is that of someone who is rather conservative in their habits, choosing to express themselves through their craft and abilities, rather than having three EeePCs.
Of course, having said that, the next manager that asks me why I'm so special, and whether I deserve the money that I earn, because 'we can outsource' is going to get a knee in the groin.
http://xkcd.com/313/
Instead they are "dream counters" - predicting future trends with the help of simple numerology and the absence of algebra. Some of them however are Mathematicians that are looking for a better pay packet and those ones produce various models that show results until they are misinterpreted by the others. Unfortunately they are rare and instead you get clowns like the economist that ordered the slaughter of most of Australia's sheep to drive up the wool price through scarcity who was utterly dumbfounded to find that it did not work because cotton exists.
Spain has a law that entry-level Spanish engineers must be paid half the salary of an engineer with several years experience. As a a consequence many choose to work abroad for their first few years then return once their salaries are no longer capped by the government.
According to this article, students are choosing to take law school courses instead, and get paid a more rewarding salary which leads directly to management than a long route which only leads to becoming a wage-slave.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Why are engineers paid low? It's because Engineers simply don't produce much value per person. The average Engineer is poorly trained for the kind of work he or she is expected to do. Don't expect an Engineer to be any good until 8 - 10 years of DELIBERATE, FOCUSSED effort has gone into actually mastering their craft. It's easier to gain more valuable expertise in other fields much faster for the same time and effort investment. Hence the irony: if you're a reasonably smart engineering graduate, the first thing you do is to jump fields to management or finance.
It's the running around in circles. In a way he is right. I study for a PhD in robotics here in Tokyo. My fellow students are in most ways incredibly good at what they are doing (better than me most of the time). But what is their handicap is that they have this really fussy, maybe typically Japanese way of doing things. They want to plan things perfectly and they want to do things perectly all the time. Everyone stick to the rules please!
So they have a hard time dealing with fuzzy planning which is very important in everyday engineering work (especially if your boss has no idea what he is talking about). So thats when the marooning (maru in Japanese =circle) starts.
So maybe Japan needs more engineers because the current number does not work efficiently enough.
Also foreigners can easily enter a company or any university here in Japan. Only requirement (except being an ok engineer): reading, writing, speaking Japanese. And takes a while to learn..
-- LP-Research
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Government acting to correct a 'shortage' that isn't there to artificially lower the cost of labour is the very definition of a conspiracy.
I assume you mean the H1b visa thing. In which case, the only government "action" is stopping foreign engineers at the border. There is the artificial interference in the free market.
Diamonds are as expensive as they are for two reasons supply is tightly controlled by one company (DeBeers) and domain specific demand is created through marketing.
Ah. So it's a conspiracy. Nothing to do Marginal utility, eh?
And if demand can be created via marketing, why can't MS create this demand for the zune or vista? They tightly control production and have vast amounts of money to "create demand" and yet they are struggling in the marketplace.
I think its interesting to look at the differences that Americans view their lives versus some asian countries like China or Japan. Individualism is pounded into our heads in the states where as in China you see yourself as part of the machine. China is viewed as something greater than one man. I think Americans see it the opposite to an extent which is what makes it difficult to understand some of the attitudes in China and Japan because we just don't think that way so we don't think that our misunderstandings are because we don't realize that different cultures can think about things in a completely different way.
Balderdash!
I don't know where did you get that from, but I am Spanish, living and working in Spain as a software engineer, and that is not the case.
Entry level salaries are low, far too low, but that is not due to any law. It is due to a high number of qualified people looking for jobs on an obsolete economy based on construction work and tourism.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
I think there is a lot to what you said. It may not be necessarily the "twilight" of the USA or Japan (it could be a temporary lull), but I can attest to seeing and meeting plenty of glitzy young people in Japan who just don't have that hunger that you mentioned as their parents do.
Compounding the issue is the fact that some/many younger adults in Japan (20s and 30s) live at home due to cultural norms, convenience, etc. I don't think they fully realize how little money they are making in their job and how it won't support their lifestyle when the parents are gone. Engineers in Japan are actually paid quite little, but more than the part time jobs many young people in Japan are opting for recently.
Lawyers work even more insane hours than engineers - at least the ones that you're referring to that make the big bucks. Your average humble straight-out-of-school variety starts at maybe $40-$50k. Big salaries exist only if you make it into a big firm or a big corp. Ditto crazy hours for the accountants that make the big salaries.
I second the other replier's call for pharmacy school. Two years of undergrad, 3-4 years of Pharm.D. program (6 years total after high school). I have 5 cousins who just finished the program. 35 hours a week. $20k-50k sign on bonus (one even was given a 5-series BMW). Frequent dinners at Ruth's Chris while you're an undergrad, courtesy of pushy pharm salesmen. $110,000 starting salary for essentially doing two things - looking up drug interactions on a computer screen and verifying with the insurance company on the phone (if you work retail like Walgreens). You don't even need to count pills anymore - some other schmuck does it for you (and they get paid $28/hr to do it - and we wonder why American health care costs so much?)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
This is absolutely how the Japanese corporate environment currently operates, but savvy new entrepreneurs in Japan are changing that corporate environment (thank goodness).
It still doesn't detract from the difficult lifestyle demanded due to Japanese culture.I actually studied abroad in a maritime science section of Kobe University (the Fukae campus / Hakuo dormitory). It's an extremely strict environment for would-be engineers, with strict bedtimes at 11pm, a no-girls policy, and rigorous course structure. Compared that to the regular environment of Japanese college, where parties are a daily thing full of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and you'll understand why there's a lack of engineers.
The current state of Japanese education is deplorable...even worse than the American idea of education. You're put into an environment where you are to conform, conform, conform. If you don't like it...well...ask the ridiculous number of students who commit suicide because of that very reason. Their curriculum is strict, draconian mush that assaults the minds of the students. It's like trying to teach a dog to do tricks by beating him with a cane in a burlap bag.
From the 1950's all the way to the start of the bubble of the 90's, this sort of mentality was *OK* because people were willing to work hard to build up a better Japan. However, the 'new' curriculum for education in Japan has lost any sort of freedom it once had.
I feel that main joy associated with engineering is the joy of building...putting together something completely new and unique. There's an extremely creative aspect associated with that. If your entire life is put on a railroad with a single stop at a corporation as a slave-worker, regarded as a cog in the great machine, then how in the world can you expect someone who is an engineer -- one who's joy comes from building unique solutions to difficult problems -- to endure that kind of hell?
Full disclosure: My wife is an ex-careerwoman and current furiitaa. Once I got out of grad school and got a nice job with the gaijin exclusion bonus, we decided there was no point in having that if we couldn't enjoy it together, and she does temp work now (staying under the 1,500,000 yen/year cap so she can be on my social security and health plan and we don't have to pay twice). She's a lot happier. We're a lot happier.
That being said, just a couple weeks ago (Golden Week), we took a little trip back to "our" hometown and to our old company, and it was really nice to see all those people. It was very much like coming home.
And that's the thing. In Japan, you are a member of a company. You don't just work there. It is your social group. It is your community. Since it's basically impossible to get fired, everyone there has to learn to get along and work together. You have to learn to cope. And that creates a family atmosphere. You may hate your father (Just an example! My dad is great!), but you're family. Same thing about your boss.
In North America, you are your job. In Japan, you are your company. When we meet, we usually ask, "What do you do?" The answer will be something like "I'm a programmer" or "I'm a lecturer" or "I'm a graphic designer." But asking the same question in Japan might get you "I work for FedEx" or "I work for Sumitomo" or "I work for Toyo University." It's a very different way of thinking.
In North America, your skillset is who you are. Where you work is considered unimportant. We are constantly applying for different jobs and weighing offers. Not so in Japan. There are very very few mid-to-upper-level job offers in Japan. Everyone comes in at the bottom, like professional zygotes which can develop into anything. Your skillset is understood to only be valid at the company where it was developed. This is why you'll sometimes talk to people who are programmers or whatever, and you will quickly find that they know almost nothing, outside of the specific thing they do at work. That's all they know, but they know it very well.
In North America, it is in our best interest to be a bit of a jack of all trades, with specific competencies in one particular thing, but a very broad base. This makes us hire-able. In Japan, coming into a company, they really are just looking for general intelligence and certain psychological profiles. All the skills they need will be imparted by the company.
Despite the fact that I ostensibly teach some very high-level English at my university, both the students and I know that if they really need English at work, they'll be sent to a training course, maybe even outside of Japan, to really get good. Of course, having a foreign language on your resume can't hurt your employment options, but it usually doesn't translate to a job that actually uses that language.
And one more thing, because it's related. Tests are very important in Japan. That's why so many people in my actual field, psychometrics, have cut their teeth here in Japan. Most company and university and high school entrance tests are pretty terrible on any scale of reliability or validity, but it seems people are realizing that and there's a lot of work for people who think that multi-parameter item response theory, for example, is really interesting (like me!). But even if we make a really good test, all a test will ever really test is the examinee's ability to take the test. And if it's a well-known test, like the TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication, by ETS), it can be defeated with strategies. So people work on strategies instead of skills, because the test numbers are all that matter. This ends up inflating the scores that companies look for, which forces people to study even harder, all the while knowing that they aren't actually acquiring any useful skills!
To conclude before I spend the whole morning typing instead of doing my actual job, work culture is probably