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."

Comments

Solution

[atari2600a]

REGULATE WALLSTREET. You'll get JFK'd in the process but that's where they're all going...

Re:Solution

[Seumas]

It's hard to believe that anyone really gives a shit about "growing more engineers" domestically, when they keep pushing things like H1Bs, because "it's too expensive". If the supposed scarcity of engineers is real, then engineers would be paid a whole lot more, which would entice more people to go into engineering. Instead, they "artificially" deflate the price of an engineer by just saying "fuck it, we'll bring more in" and then when fewer people want to become engineers as a result, they bitch about that, too.

It's an inevitable result of the whole "engineers have to live within the costs of living in the region they reside, but their employers can pick over the entire globe of labor, including places where the entire cost of living for one engineer is less than the cost of groceries, for another".

Re:Solution

[Chrisq]

Same here in the UK. 10 years ago the floor I work on had 100 full-time English programmers. Now it has 20 full-time staff and 150 contract staff from India.

Re:Solution

[Hazel Bergeron]

Blunt question: even if it costs half as much to hire someone working in a third world country, isn't this made up for by the inefficiency of long-distance communication of and delays in understanding across cultures?

Shouting, "Oi, Bob!" across the office and having all relevant materials in front of both of you is so much better for collaboration than having to speak to someone half way across the world (assuming they're even awake).

Is there one example in the literature, anywhere, of service which has been maintained or improved following offshoring? What about in the double whammy of offshoring and outsourcing, rather than simply hiring employees abroad?

Re:Solution

[EvilStein]

This is why the thousands of illegal immigrants marching in the streets saying "Yes we can" piss me off sometimes. Millions of illegal immigrants clogging up our already overloaded immigration system. We have the same problem that Australia does - immigration is great, but we need more engineers & scientists, not roofers and hair stylists from Guatemala, regardless of how entitled they feel to be in the US.

Re:Solution

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. Many managers don't get where they are by being complete idiots, it's just that they have a completely different way of seeing things, and it's all about short-term results.

So hiring people in 3rd-world countries is very attractive, because on the balance books it looks really good: they can say, "I saved the company $X million dollars per year by outsourcing [division]!" and then they get a $X/10 bonus, which they can buy themselves a giant mansion or a new yacht with. The inefficiency that plagues this deal and causes loss instead of gain takes a little while to show up and is harder to quantify, so by the time they figure out this was a bad deal, that manager has already "left the company to pursue other opportunities" and is relaxing on his yacht with three girlfriends.

Law is cheaper and more rewarding

[Anonymous Coward]

Make it so Law and Finance is not the easiest place to make money and you will see more engineers.

Of course you don't.

[thegarbz]

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?

Re:Of course you don't.

[johnjaydk]

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.

Amen to that. I'm handing back my masters degree in IT plus a lifetime of experience in order to start in B-school to become a quant. I'm tired of taking it up the ass.

Re:Of course you don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why would you want to be an engineer?"

Because the technology is legitimately interesting, that's why. And that's the ONLY reason - as you quite correctly point out, engineers (of various types - electrical engineers, mechanical, software, etc.) are treated like dirt in this country. The only thing that keeps me interested in my chosen field is my sincere interest in the technology itself. That's the only way I can put up with a culture that values drunken debauchery from the football team's quarterback over historical technological advances of massive importance. Anyone with an IQ in this country over that of a doorknob is usually treated as a "nerd", stereotyped into being a social outcast, and is subjected to ridiculous deadlines by the guy that used to be said aforementioned quarterback. We're over-saturated with mind-numbingly stupid media (TV, movies, music, etc.) that pays millions to people because they look pretty but are dumb as a box of rocks. What has Paris Hilton done to advance the lives of humanity? Not a goddamn thing, unless you count being a doped-up retarded slut who does nothing but sit around and party all fucking day as something positive. But there are thousands of engineers and scientists in this country who bust their ass every day to cure disease, create new technology, and solve problems. But who are they? No one knows, because we (as a culture) don't care enough anymore to honor them in any way whatsoever.

This is a problem of culture, primarily. If we change American culture to sincerely VALUE intelligence, hard work, and scientific innovation, we'll have a resurgence of engineering graduates, and thereby improve our standing as a nation in terms of math and science education, and begin creating new, innovative technologies once again.

Re:Of course you don't.

[rta]

Well, in the meantime we can just issue more H1Bs and outsource some more. That'll help motivate the kids.

Re:Of course you don't.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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.

It's not just the wages and the other advantages. Me, I used to be a software engineer with a pretty damn good pay, and I gave it all up to retrain and work as a gunsmith. Why? Because I'm happier creating beautiful rifles with my hands, that my customers are happy to own and use, than be a stressed-out project manager in a software company where everybody, from management to the customers, prefers quick development over a job well done.

I'm paid a lot less, but I also work fewer hours, the hours I work are good time, I get to spend quality time with my family and forge a bond with my customers. In short, I'm happier. Besides, being an engineer isn't all it's cracked up to be, there's pride in being a good honest craftsman too.

Re:Of course you don't.

[zxh]

China or Germany don't have this problem. They raise their engineers onto pedestals bigger than those the Americans would reserve for bankers.

I am tired of seeing China being referenced as a "good" example of engineer-led country, again and again.

The politburo is consisted of a bunch of top level bureaucrats, who happen to have engineering degree. In fact, people were selected into bureaucracy not because of their engineering degrees, but
A) they joined the party early;
B) they graduated from top universities (E.g. Tsinghua);
C) they actively participated in party sanctioned politics either in their first civilian jobs, or as early as in the university, such as student unions (effective a pre-bureaucracy self-administering the students).

Re:Of course you don't.

[gatkinso]

>> Why would you want to be an engineer?

Because I love it.

Unemployment rate

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?

Obama spent his entire life in academia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and really doesn't have a clue what anybody actually needs.

You wont have enough engineers

[unity100]

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.

Follow the cash

[AHuxley]

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.

Well a couple things to understand about that

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

First

[Shivetya]

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.

Re:First

[ConceptJunkie]

I would suggest shows like "Mythbusters" and "Junkyard Wars", etc. would be more likely to spur an interest in fields like engineering. All "CSI" does is make people think technology is magic.

Re:First

[AmiMoJo]

Having a society based on laziness and celebrating reality TV stars does.

Even documentaries have gone this way in the past 20 years. Up to the 80s they would get some knowledgeable person to talk about the subject, maybe interview some key people and use some explanatory graphics. In the 90s they started making documentaries into dramas, pitching them as the story of how the people involved came up with rival theories and argued and then someone else came along with a "revolutionary" idea... All aided by fancy presentation, breathless voice overs and a lineup of crackpot theories to flesh it out.

Then there is the dumbing down. They no longer say "mass", it has been reduced to "stuff". One sentence could explain the word "mass" and then the viewer would be educated and not feel like a retard who has to be spoken to like a four year old, but that might alienate people who are that dumb. Sod those guys, if you are dumb there is nothing wrong with being made to feel that way by words every school child should know.

I wish the BBC would repeat some episodes of Horizon from the 70s and 80s, not only so people could enjoy them but so they could see just how far we have fallen from those high standards. Today they wouldn't be exciting enough for TV, but I guarantee they will instil a far greater sense of wonder and eagerness to learn. All the time you cater to the lowest common denominator you are fuelling the perception that it is okay to be in in that group.

'We Don't Have Enough Engineers'

[MistrX]

I think Obama is referring to TeamFortress 2.

Simple solution: end "free trade"

[MikeRT]

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.

Missing the point (possibly willingly)

[luis_a_espinal]

'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.

EE here...

[Triode]

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.

Lockheed-Martin lays off 1200 Engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

...says the headlines just today. I guess that means we only need 8800 more engineers this year!

This.

[turing_m]

If the supposed scarcity of engineers is real, then engineers would be paid a whole lot more, which would entice more people to go into engineering.

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.

Re:This.

[dgatwood]

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.

Yeah, but admit it, if any politician promised to get lots of women to breed with engineers, just about everyone here on Slashdot would vote for him/her (probably including people who aren't even citizens of that country). Just saying.

Hiring Manager Here...

[originalhack]

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.