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Obama: 'We Don't Have Enough Engineers'
dcblogs writes "President Obama wants to boost engineering graduation rates by 10,000 a year. In 2009, the US produced 126,194 engineering graduates for bachelor's and master's degrees and for Ph.D.s. The US had just over 1.9 million engineers in 2010. The unemployment rate in 2010 for all engineers was 4.5%. 'We've made incredible progress on education, helping students to finance their college educations, but we still don't have enough engineers,' said Obama. He's counting on the private sector to help expand the number of graduates."
REGULATE WALLSTREET. You'll get JFK'd in the process but that's where they're all going...
Make it so Law and Finance is not the easiest place to make money and you will see more engineers.
Why would you want to be an engineer? Seriously why, when you could do manual labour, be an electrician, cementer, crane driver, or work in a number of other trades? The other trades pay more, give you better conditions, and you don't need to go work for some mining company in the middle of no where to earn a wage.
I know electricians who did their trade after their EE degree for this reason. Sure you can make a mint as an engineer but is it worth it having to live in a remote country town in order to do so?
Or why not become a "financial engineer". You get to use your brain, you get paid massive bonuses for creating zero wealth, and you don't get treated as a second class citizen.
China or Germany don't have this problem. They raise their engineers onto pedestals bigger than those the Americans would reserve for bankers.
Why would you want to be an engineer?
Given about half of them work for the defense, and their work is hidden from society, ... all you have to do is get rid of half of them and your sold. ...
Next problem
"President Obama wants to boost engineering graduation rates by 10,000 a year. (...) The US had just over 1.9 million engineers in 2010. The unemployment rate in 2010 for all engineers was 4.5%." In other words, the US has a total of 85,500 unemployed engineers, but needs to produce an additional 10,000 per year?
...and really doesn't have a clue what anybody actually needs.
noone is a moron to work their asses over their entire life studying hard and delicate things to whore their lives off to fat asses sucking off the profits on top of their heads.
you either start paying percentages to engineers, or fat asses will have to descend from their high throne in directors' executives' rooms and start doing the engineering themselves.
Read radical news here
Well that's the comments I've heard from a lot of prospective Enginners. so, they take the easy way out and do Media or Business Studies.
Yes the Science stuff can be hard. So? Life can be hard!
Some points:-
-Schools are more concerned with getting everone to pass regardless of quality.
-Teaching Engineering at all costs a heck of a lot more than Accountancy or Law or some other 'soft' subject.
To be a successful Engineer takes a lot of dedication. It took me 7 years after leaving school to get my BS in Control Engineering.
In the old days you would set the standards high so that not too many entered per year and diluted the earning pool.
At some point something happened to the good wages and nothing happened to the graduation numbers.
Now the trick seems to be make more cheap engineers. They know "responsibility" is very personal in their field.
Why would anyone want to be an engineer in the US? The infrastructure is a mess and every project you sign off on legally risky long term for a lower wage.
If the US wants more very skilled people, start paying them again. But that would show the cracks in the currency.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
FTFA... "...the U.S. graduates more visual arts and performing arts majors than engineers. It also noted that the U.S. ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science and engineering." It strikes me that this stems from the philosophy that children in the US are encouraged to pursue 'whatever you enjoy most' under the misconception that is the career they will be best suited to and thus make them happiest. In other countries this doesn't happen. Parents push their kids towards the careers that pay well and are likely to ensure them a happy future. Later in life the kids thank their parent for this. How many penniless actors are there in the US that wish they'd chosen another career? Sure, this philosophy works fine if you actually have won the lottery or have rich parents, but what do kids really know about making these decisions? You can say that an 18 yr old is perfectly mature enough to make up their own mind, but in reality the decision made much earlier in life. It doesn't happen often that a teenager, who has spent their whole childhood indulging in the arts, suddenly realizes he/she has made a mistake and then switches to a career in engineering.
First is that unemployment is higher now for everyone than normal. Planning ahead one would expect it to come back down, which would mean far less unemployment than what we have now. Total unemployment (measured in terms of U3) in the US is about 8.7% currently. If you look back on things somewhere around 5% is more normal (4.5-6.5% ish range). That means that if it returns to normal, which it likely will you can expect unemployment of engineers to be down to 1-2%, maybe less, hence the need for more.
Also you have to understand that unemployment as normally measured, using the U3 number, will basically never be zero. Reason is it includes anyone who isn't actively working right now, but has made some active effort to look for a job in the last 4 weeks. So that means someone gets tired of their job and quits, but is out looking for one they like better, they are unemployed according to U3. That happens even in great times with lots of employment. Same deal with someone who was working on a contract and that is up, and is now looking for another one. Doesn't matter if the economy is great and they'll get work in a hurry, they are still unemployed by the U3 definition. The only unemployment measure you can ever see at or near zero is U1 (people with no job for longer than 15 weeks) and even that is rare. Some unemployment is just how things tend to work. Doesn't mean it is the same people, forever unemployable, just that there is turnover and movement.
Finally you have to understand that in some technical fields, like engineering, there will be people who are or become unemployable because they lack the skills needed, even if they have the desire. That someone went to school and managed to cram their way through an engineering degree doesn't mean they necessarily have the real world skills to be a good engineer. Likewise, the field evolves and someone who was once good, but refuses to adapt, could be unemployable as an engineer.
So you can't look at it in the simplistic sense of "Until no engineers are unemployed we don't need more engineers." Instead you need to consider current conditions, future demand, changes to future conditions and so on and decide if more will be needed. Goes double since an engineer is not made in a day. Even if you assume all that is needed is a undergraduate degree that is 4 years right there. Means if you think you'll need more engineers in 4 years, you'd better start on it now.
why would he regulate those who make up his staff? We don't have President Main Street, we have President Wall Street. For all the wearing of sackcloth and anguish over GWB about his corporate ties people totally ignore the President Goldman Sachs. Oh sure he loves to lash out at "Big Business" but they make so many back door deals they do a good job of protecting those who support their campaign coffers.
You want engineers, fine, make it cool then. We spend less on NASA than we lose to the deficit in a week (okay, it might be a few days more). We have schools built around the best interest of teachers and administrators. Any attempt to hold them accountable comes back with claims of lack of money; not true; or teaching to the test. If test scores of students at a school do not give a clear indication of problems then what would? Take back education from the politicians and their supporters and then you might have more kids doing well enough in school and seeing a chance of success.
Wall Street does not stop us from having engineers. Having a society based on laziness and celebrating reality TV stars does. We have shows about knocked up teen agers, fake tan trolls, sleazy housewives, and hate spewing misogynistic rappers. The only serious shows are the countless CSI ripoffs where they solve the crime in the last ten minutes. I am not saying we need a reality TV show about engineers; after all we want new ones; but we don't even portray them in television so kids rarely have exposure to what those skills are. Even subtle things like having a TV dad being an engineer; we never have to see his job he just has to be cool; would go a long way.
So, you want more Engineers Mr. President
I suggest
1) Get your Congressmen hacks off the backs of for profit colleges, many are very good
2) Get the deficit under control, stop the spending, it will change the outlook of the country
3) Fund areas of science which will make people want to be engineers. We need something real, not rail. That means a Manhattan/Apollo scale project (just don't go damn the costs like they did) that will suck up these engineers and better the country. Can I suggest safe nuclear power combined with some renewable sources? We certainly have the tech for the former and need to develop the later else hand the country over to China
4) Make the focus of schools be the students, then the parents, then teachers, and finally anyone else. Hold teachers accountable, the good ones want it.
5) Did I mention the deficit? The doom and gloom hanging over people's heads when they see such staggering numbers and what happens in the world makes them lose focus. Be a President for once, stop being a politician.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's as though tanking the economy, giving all the government's money to corporations and letting public education go to shit somehow causes less people to afford college, and acts as a disincentive to study anything but business for those who do. Who'd have thought it.
We have enough engineers. Programmers, too. Really good ones.
The problem is that US companies tend not to hire (or retain) them if they aren't entry level; they'll outsource or hire fresh-from-the-classroom types in order to keep costs down, because the US corporate outlook rarely goes further than the upcoming quarterly report. If they can outsource the majority of the process, they will. For instance, (just one example of many) Apple manufactures in China. That's a *lot* of engineering jobs, tech jobs, assembly jobs, procurement jobs, etc. Looking at it one way, they have to -- because otherwise they wouldn't be competitive. But if anything sold here had to be made here, then the playing field is level again.
Older engineers cost too much: Healthcare, experience, it all comes together for a higher cost, and no one wants that on the quarterly report. Younger types, speaking generally, can't cut the tough jobs, though, and that's why we have very little high end engineering and programming capacity in use within our borders. And a rush of newly minted engineers and/or programmers won't help -- we'll just get more half-baked ideas like Apple's recent "full screen feature", basically an idiotic and functionally bereft return to the modal operations of 25 years ago. (Apple user here, see things through Apple flavored eyes.)
I think we need a period where products sold in the USA have to be 100% made in the USA, from the first stroke of the pen to the last decal on the front panel. Otherwise, this illusory period of "production" of IP will collapse with the illusion of protection our IP laws are (just barely) shoring up; other countries don't give the south end of a northbound rat for our IP laws. By pulling the entire product process within our borders, we create a level playing field for our manufacturing economy to restart. Then we could see the large, competent pool of engineers and programmers we already *have* rehired.
And we have to make damn sure that unions don't get a toehold again; they were another large factor in destroying our manufacturing economy: If the worker is not being paid enough, then they need to up their skill set and change their worth, either at their current job or at a new job. Instead of trying to blackmail their employer. The economy and cost of living changes; consequently the worker needs to change too. Their job doesn't magically become worth more because bread costs more. If they don't change, that's not the employer's fault.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's a free market. The simple solution to the "engineering shortage" is to pay more. When graduates can look forward to $250k/year salaries instead of $100/year salaries, you'd be surprised how many people would choose engineering. Right now, you have to become a doctor or lawyer to make that kind of money, so many people do.
Of course, government can't directly regulate what companies pay... but indirectly, it can: after all, the reason doctors and lawyers make so much money is because of the laws that govern their profession.
I think Obama is referring to TeamFortress 2.
Vox Day is something of a libertarian heretic in noting that the fundamental case for "free trade" is based on a very bad economic model. In fact, when Ricardo made his case for free trade he had to exclude a whole large swath of possible outcomes to make the case positively. Some of those have come true. For example, Ricardo glossed over the issue that if capital were to become mobile between countries, comparative advantage would cease. That is precisely what is happening with NAFTA and our relationship with China; American capital has moved overseas so that "American production" is actually done overseas, giving at least a partial "comparative advantage" to China and Mexico in products that we used to have over them.
The simple solution is to repeal NAFTA and restore our tariffs. "Protectionism" is only an ugly word until you realize that protectionism was actually one of the two pillars of the US economy in the 19th century (the gold standard being the other) and the growth we saw in the 19th century was substantially higher than what we saw in the 20th century. Even the value of the dollar itself went up 50% between 1800 and 1900.
Until we take away the ability of American companies to do production for our domestic markets overseas, none of this will change. Libertarians may find that "immoral," but then there a whole lot of things about doctrinaire libertarianism such as the radical individualism that eschews innate responsibilities that plenty of others (left and right alike) find immoral.
'We've made incredible progress on education, helping students to finance their college educations, but we still don't have enough engineers,' said Obama.
What a load of crap.
What's the point of producing more engineers if we don't develop a well-trained blue-colllar workforce and a manufacturing industry for them to work on it? How's the economy going to absorb them if it cannot absorb its unemployed blue collar guys?
We are losing the engineering battle not for lack of engineers, but for lack of competitive manufacturing capabilities (and incentives to have a manufacturing industry) in American soil.
He's counting on the private sector to help expand the number of graduates.
The same companies that are willing to move jobs overseas (or are pushed to do so because their competitors do)? The US government must provide incentives to companies to retain engineering and manufacturing jobs here (and penalties for those that do not.) China, Japan and India have measures to protect their local economies. We do not. And in fact, the MBA mantra is to not do it at all.
Worry about producing more engineers without tackling the lack of manufacturing competitiveness is like worrying about putting deodorant to smell clean without wiping one's ass crack after taking a dump. Seriously, it is that bad.
I think this has been mentioned here, but wanted to point out from first hand experience... I have a BS in EECE, an MS in Physics, and I took all those
damn courses to get a Ph.D. in EECE (yet to finish dissertation)... as I was going through the Ph.D. program, I witnessed a number of my classmates getting interns at Intel/AMD/etc. Not to be racial (cultural?) but I am a native born anglo-saxon american. All of my classmates are Indian/Asian. I note that I could not get an intern/etc with big companies. My grades were comparable (better), and I had some experience having worked a little between degrees.
A few points. I know a number of these classmates that went on to get jobs at Intel/AMD/Motorola/etc. These are Ph.D.s in EE/EECE/CS. They are paying these guys $37000-$47000 to start, but they give them an H1B visa (or extension), so they are totally happy to take that pay. I am sorry to say it, but a "normal" american who just spent a good deal of cash on this degree just can not get by on this. No offense to any Indian guys (in fact, this is where you have an advantage) but 20 of them can live in a single apartment due to their culture/lifestyle. They have no problems getting $40,000 to start as a Ph.D, where most americans (for better or worse) would balk at that. I was told by one classmate who went on to work at Intel that they practically don't even look at americans for work anymore at that level as they want more to start. /rant
Interestingly, since we americans are no longer going into Ph.D.s in EE/EECE, this creates a catch 22 for the CEOs to go to the govt with. "look, no one is going into the Ph.D. program, give us more H1Bs!"... go look at (for example) Intels job pages. They want Ph.D.s in EE/EECE in mostly other countries now. We will eventually no longer manufacture or design anything here, but for the time being if it helps big companies bottom lines, they will never care if they are destroying us. We will wake up and no one will know how to build or design things here, and then all will be lost.
rant/
td;dl, Companies don't pay as they know H1Bs are cheap, no one goes in due to low wages, a manager at McDonalds can make more. Obama/Congress can not fix that, as they are paid by the same companies saying we need more H1Bs. Hey, I could go be a professor when it is done, but I could make more money asking if you want fries with that at the drive through.
.
human engineer = politician and/ort spin-doctor
financial engineer = banker and/or fraudster
medical engineer = pharmacist or doctor
and will have their personal engineer slave who programs the TV and the Internet for him/her.
...says the headlines just today. I guess that means we only need 8800 more engineers this year!
I've come to realise over the years that when a politician or industry figure says "We don't have enough X" what they actually mean is that "X is a very sought after talent, and because of that they're expecting reasonable wages for that talent, can we please do something to flood the market to make their skillset dirty cheap?".
The US probably does have enough engineers, I mean, you've got like 20million unemployed or something, let's be realistic- there's sure as hell going to be lots of engineers in there, just by sheer virtue of the size of the figure. The real issue is companies don't want to pay them a fair wage, they want the talent, but they want it dirt cheap, so they make up a myth about lack of candidates.
Take Mathematics, for years I've heard about how the UK has a severe shortage, but I'm a maths graduate and having been job hunting myself for a new role this last week and having spoken to 39 agencies it seems to confirm my suspicion, that there's not actually really many companies looking for maths skills, it's my programming skills they're all seeking. If math skills were in such short supply shouldn't I have plenty of offers for interviews for more mathematical roles? I wont complain as I'm riding the .NET gravy train which seems to be having a real boom right now in terms of pay, but certainly what politicians and businesses say about skill shortages, doesn't actually tally up with reality whatsoever.
So we have a math shortage, what do they want the government to do, train more mathematicians so that there'll be hundreds of us fighting over the one largely mathematics based job that comes along once in a blue moon, willing to undercut each other rather than just me going for it and asking a fair wage? Yeah, I thought so.
...and you just MIGHT get what you're asking for. What's the point in someone spending 4 years of their life on a very expensive BS or MS EE degree when it seems the move to outsource more and more of America (or the mass issuing of H1B visas to people willing to work for half the normal pay rate) is becoming even more prevalent these days.
Either discount EE degrees "half-off", or stop the outsourcing. You choose Obama, because as it stands today, an EE degree isn't worth the pain anymore. People need to know they have some ROI on a $150,000 investment, especially when it is their livelihood at stake.
Again, the guy is completely and utterly ignorant of how anything in the world works. Of course, he is only the culmination of the pervasive ignorance that elected him. Our political system has devolved to the point where they are driven solely by the lowest common denominator. How else could we have elected as a President a man who has never run anything in his life, has never created anything of value, has never spoken an original idea, someone who literally contributes nothing to society? And it's not like the alternative candidates were much better (although some of them at least had relevant executive experience).
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
manufacturing gives engineers gives hard sciences gives soft sciences. When you outsource the manufacturing you lose all that follows. Also the purpose of the H1B program isn't to fill an urgent shortage of engineers it's to push down the cost of them. If they actually wanted more they would pay them more. The USA is investing heavily in fair weather industries (copyright, banking) to the detriment of fundamental industries (manufacturing, engineering). This means in a recession you lose a bigger part of your economy.
Exactly. Engineers come from a limited pool of people. You need to be smart and hard working. I'd hazard a guess and say that below IQ 125 or so just isn't going to cut it. So basically only about 5% of the population could even be an engineer.
If you are smart enough to be an engineer, especially a good engineer, you are also smart enough to be able to choose business, accounting, law, pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, etc. You are also smart enough to google pay scales and such while still in high school, and pick a career that is going to maximize the reward for the risk and the effort. If you want to rob those other well remunerated fields to create more engineers (since the game is zero-sum), you need to show the prospective students the money.
The other alternative is of course to create some sort of selective breeding program to create a society of engineers, but it would be politically impossible to implement and certainly not see any results over one presidential term. So yeah, show us the money.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
The US is a country where people with an interest in STEM disciplines are mocked as nerds, geeks, and losers.
The US is a country where American engineers and programmers not only have to compete with offshoring, but with H-1B visa holders.
The US is a country where engineers and programmers get a crappy salary unless they work in finance.
With these facts in mind, I find it surprising that Barack Obama has the temerity to go on record as saying "we don't have enough engineers", while saying that "private sector companies will promote science, technology, engineering and math education, offer students incentives to finish degrees, and help universities fund their programs. The participating companies intend to double their internship hiring." It's going to take more than that to get more engineers, and we have to start in grammar school.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I've recently had openings for well-paid EE/CS interns at a top-tier company. These are INTERN positions that pay in the "$37000-$47000" range and frequently lead to permanent positions that start at twice that and rise rapidly from there. I rarely see a single candidate who is, as you classify, a "native born anglo-saxon american". When I do, I rarely see one who can follow basic logic and apply algebra to a simple problem. The interview is usually essentially over in the first 20 minutes.
Of the last 2 interns I hired, one happens to be a product of the US education system and the other falls in the "Indian/Asian" category. I can give one a permanent position. The pay is the same regardless of which one I choose. If I choose the non-citizen, I am in for a whole pile of extra paperwork to get his labor certification done.
There is no comparison on the performance level. (The hours are identical -- interns work exactly 40 hours per week) Even though I will wind up with a whole pile of paperwork, I am hiring the non-citizen. I'd rather have to do the paperwork than have to teach the kid who grew up here all of the things that his parents and teachers should have taught him over the years.
Face it. I need to hire people who know how to do stuff. In the last 20 years or so, we started to produce kids that don't know how to do anything. Personally, I think it was around the time that parents started to buy kids nice cars rather than helping them get a heap of junk out of the classifieds and lending them a set of tools.
There is a part of me that would rather hire my fellow Americans. Too bad I can very rarely find qualified ones. That pains me.
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