Electrical Engineer Unemployment Soars; Software Developers' Rate Drops to 2.2%

dcblogs writes "The unemployment rate for people at the heart of many tech innovations — electrical engineers — soared in the first quarter of this year to 6.5%. That's nearly double the unemployment rate from last year. The reasons for the spike aren't clear, but the IEEE-USA says the increase is alarming. At the same time, U.S. Labor Dept. data showed that jobs for software developers are on the rise. The unemployment rate for software engineers was 2.2% in the first quarter, down from 2.8% last year. This professional group warns that unemployment rates for engineers could get worse if H-1B visas are increased. The increase in engineering unemployment comes at the same time demand for H-1B visas is up."

Comments

Companies don't want to take the time/$$ to train

[asm2750]

If you look at most entry level jobs for EE's, and Computer Engineers they want applicants to have 3 to 5 years of actual experience on products like VxWorks, Synopsys, ActiveHDL, Cadence, etc. No company wants to take a fledgling American EE graduate and help give them the skills/training needed to do their job well and build loyalty. They expect their hires to be laying gold eggs from day one with no help, have 3 or 4 internships under their belt.

I got my MSEE last year, and all I am getting offers for are contract jobs that only last 3 to 18 months.
Sure the pay is okay, but what happens when that pool dries up? Would you like moving from job to job always stressing out if you are going to get another contract when the current one ends?
What if you get sick? You have to buy your own health insurance plan when you work under a contract. That might, or might not be expensive, and might not cover everything.
How about additional training to make yourself marketable, and able to do the job faster/better? With how companies act today, don't count on it. Most contractors also expect you to be an expert in the area you will be working in.

I would be happy to take a pay reduction for the first year or two just to get into an actual design job that has job security, and offers a constructive environment. R&D would be even better but, even I know the limits of my skills.

Maybe it's time for engineers to start their own small side companies or, maybe it's time to encourage a tradesman program where experienced EE's show new EE's how things are done, and train the skills needed to do the job.

Re:Reads like a press release

[Sentrion]

You really can't compare CEO pay to the pay of workers and professionals. A key difference is that the CEO decides how resources are allocated. Say a startup company has a CEO and one employee. The company brings in $2mil in revenue its first year and the only expense is the employee salary. If the CEO offers the employee $100k per year and the employee agrees that this is a good salary to accept an offer and remain employed then the CEO can choose to do with the remaining $1.9mil whatever he sees fit. Now let's say that there is a minority shareholder who expects a return on his investment. Suppose he originally invested 40% of $200k in startup capital. And let's say that the CEO wants the stock price to remain stable and competitive with similar companies in his industry. If most similar companies are paying investors a 5% dividend each year as the stock price increases by 12% each year, then the CEO can do likewise, even though the young startup company has just earned a massive windfall in its first year. Such a windfall may (or may not based on various factors) drive up the price of the company stock. If the CEO wants to keep the price increase of the company stock at a stable level matching the growth of similar companies in his industry he can pay himself huge bonuses, increased salary, and enjoy a few tax write-offs such as a company car and a timeshare in a corporate jet. The end result is that the investor is paid the "market rate" in the form of dividends and capital gains while the employee is paid the "market rate" for his services, without any regard for the fact that the profits generated are far and above the market rates paid to either. The CEO in literally raking it all in simply because he's in the position to plunder the corporate funds however he chooses and his only risks are that the minority shareholders might grumble if they get less than the market rate for their investment, and similar concerns for employees who will only grumble if they earn less than their peers.

Now, expand this system to hundreds of types of employees, managers, and classes of investors. The CEO can only borrow so much cash to maintain position as majority shareholder, so he teams up with his buddy who is a CEO at another firm. They decide to swap shares with each other, sit on each other's board of directors, convince retailer investors (aka their employees of their own and their buddy's firms) to put their savings into their companies, perpetuate the myth of independent corporate governance, perpetuate the myth of free markets and the effectiveness of anti-trust legislation, direct the funds of their corporations to pass laws that strengthen the position of their class in society, pay exponentially higher compensation to managers depending on level of authority to perpetuate the myth that executive pay is a product of the free market, and while sitting on each other's boards of directors vote each other exhorbitant pay increases, bonuses, and perks. Then when the system comes crashing down, call up the government that they bought and paid for to borrow excessively by selling bonds to China, print currency that reducses the value of the US dollar earned and held by the middle class, and give it to them to "bail" them out, then vote each other bonuses for accomplishing the goal. Go back to the government to reduce their taxes while making sure there is little or no tax cuts for the middle class, "reform" bankruptcy, manipulate the labor market by paying low wages while making sure that underpaid workers receive food stamps, social security and medicaid that is subsidized by the middle class. Remind corporate stooge politicians to keep taxes for social security and medicare only on the first $100k of income so this burden is placed mostly on the middle class. Hire astro-turfers to convince the working class voters that giving bailouts and tax breaks to the wealthy will make the rich richer and that this is a good thing since ONLY the mega-rich create jobs, but make sure not to mention that those jo

Re:One cause

[thegarbz]

I disagree. I'm living proof you can graduate electrical engineering with honours using copious amounts of Wikipedia. I came out of University knowing nothing and it has been an uphill battle getting where I am now. Most of my colleagues are the same. University is no longer about learning and it's all about getting a piece of paper, then we rely on learning on the job.

This works well in some cases but I look back at some of the people I studied with and they are unable to get registered professional engineering status as they lack the skills required even several years out of uni.

That is not the sort of mediocrity our universities should be churning out.

Re:One cause

[trout007]

I graduated with an ME 20 years ago. Every time there is a new problem I have to relearn the material. Where the education helps is I at least know how to attack the problem even if I have to look up and relearn how to do the analysis.