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.'"

Comments

Re:"Average engineer"

[freedom_india]

Hey!
Am the guy who hates maths because i *hate* maths. (OTOH my maths teacher in school kept hitting me whenever i made a mistake instead of trying to teach me what i did wrong. SO i ended up hating Maths)
Yes, and everything you have said is true about getting kicked upstairs while my PhD in Maths comrade is still stuck in same job for past 6 years.
Do you want to really know why?
Because we MBAs are good at other things like: Actual Domain Knowledge [in banking, etc] instead of mere theoritical knowledge like Myron-Scholes Model. We know we are not good at Maths, and we never claim otherwise, because we buckle down and work hard to learn how business is done in Real world instead of theory.
Your PhD leaves for home at 5.30 PM sharp and orders everyone to call him "Doctor". We have no such pretensions. We know our IQ is limited, our knowledge of systems IT is limited, and we have to call HelpDesk to reconfigure voice mail. But we do know how to make sure our business models make sure whatever new regulation or opportunity comes our way, we can be ready for it. We know that buying 20000 shares of SEE in 2006 would have netted us a 78% gain today (inspite of recession), and that while our sutis are clean our hands are ditry because we buckle down and actually do the job, instead of leaving home at 5.30 PM and refusing to get down to brasstacks because "Oh-am-a-doctor"...

The world would belong to Geeks IF they show some business sense instead of bringing Dalek toys to work.

P.S. I was a geek once. I learned quickly that you need to talk business to suits and beat a path to their door instead of waiting for the world to beat a path to my door. Oh, and am armed with State-First marks in Comp Science AND Marketing.