Slashdot Mirror
Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking
dcblogs writes "The number of electrical engineers in the workforce has declined over the last decade. It's not a steady decline, and it moves up and down, but the overall trend is not positive. In 2002 the U.S. had 385,000 employed electrical engineers; in 2004, post dot.com bubble, it was at 343,000. It reached 382,000 in 2006, but has not risen above 350,000 since then, according to U.S. Labor Data. In 2012, there were 335,000 electrical engineers in the workforce. Of the situation, one unemployed electrical engineer said: 'I am getting interviews but, they have numerous candidates to choose from. The employers are very fussy. They are really only interested in a perfect match to their needs. They don't want the cost to develop talent internally. They are even trying to combine positions to save money. I came across one employer trying to combine a mechanical and electrical engineer.'"
Employers want to make as much money as possible without having to pay people. If they could convert their good ideas into products without the bothersome worry of employees they'd do it in a heartbeat. Therefore, employees aren't as likely to go spend four years in college to work at McDonalds.
Employers don't want to develop talent in-house because that's expensive -- and will get more so as the employee becomes more attractive to the company's competitors. Employers also don't want to hire people to increase their talent pool; rather, they want to hire "super talent" in order to fire one or more lesser engineers.
Those hundreds of positions you see advertised? They aren't a sign of growth, but of stagnation, and a nearly total absence of investment (even from the profits that a company is supposed to be making).
It could only be considered a good thing for an engineer to be flexible enough to fill multidisciplinary roles in terms of integration at a high level ...
But I may hold that opinion because I hold masters degrees in both EEE & ME, and I work in systems integration.
No, it sounds like that unemployed EE was complaining about a lack of demand, not a dearth of supply. In theory the two are supposed to follow each other. In practice, demand for EEs is higher than ever - just not in America.
Can't wait until Far East labour law matches Western conditions and market interventions (right down to war) don't artificially reduce the price of oil - then the real cost of buying everything from the other side of the world might come to light. Of course, the opposite will happen: the West will race to the bottom on labour conditions and freedoms.
Serious question, as I suspect there are quiet a few EE / CE folks here...
If your background (or degree) is in computer architecture / computer engineering, are you a "double E"?
Reason I ask: my degree is B.S.E.E., I'm an electrical engineer. In my studies, my concentration / specialization was "Computer Architecture" (one of a handful of specialties with our EE dept.) All EEs had to choose one specialization (signals & systems, power, etc.)
But at many schools, there are standalone "Computer Engineering" curriculums and even degrees. Upon discussion, I've realized they're essentially to what I did as a "double E" (including the other coursework such as circuit analysis, signals, etc.)
I guess my question is this: what do we consider to be an "electrical engineer"? (Please no snarky remarks about "what does your degree say?" or whatever - I'm working with a bunch of young engineers - mixture of EE, CE and CS, and this discussion got pretty lively within the group...) Would a "computer engineer" be an electrical engineer?
All of my friends who graduated as electrical engineers ended up doing software development anyway. So maybe people realize that the job market just can't support them if they choose to go EE.
More proof there is a STEM shortage! Uh, shortage of demand that is. Of course academia and the cheap labor lobby will spin this as a supply shortage, insist on more money and students to keep EE departments open, and even more importantly insist on more H-1B's.
I am an EE, and like every other EE I know, I advise my children to stay the hell out of engineering.
This is not about how many engineering hours are used, just about what kind of hours are used.
You still have to have hardware to run on, but most of the features are software.
Project starts with a hardware design, testing, and getting ready for production,
But that's only 10-20% of the engineering hours.
The rest is software.
Hey we have all been around..
The employers are very fussy. They are really only interested in a perfect match to their needs. They don't want the cost to develop talent internally.
I think this is a systemic problem in the marketplace these days, it seems to be the case for any job (especially in IT). And of course since the _perfect_ candidate, who is also willing to work for the salary you offer, is rare - companies then start moaning about 'lack of talent' and the need to import skilled workers.
In the '90s, EEs at the company I worked for were being "reskilled" to do software development. The positions they occupied weren't being refilled (at least, not in the USA). There has been no surge in demand and a high unemployment rate, so why would students choose to pursue it as a degree?
. . . . I'm a security geek. I see more and more gigs that want you to be a Win + Linux Admin, Cisco guru, Security Guru on several different firewalls and IDS/IPS systems, run the Helpdesk (which turns out to BE the Helpdesk), have multiple certs including PMP, and have 10+ years experience,. . . and do it all for not much over entry-level wages. . .
say.. so they were looking for a robot designer?
just saying, combining jobs is sometimes useful. otherwise to make a pocketwatch you'll need an ee, a materials engineer, an usability engineer, an ergonomics specialist, mechanical engineer, a sw architecht, a software programmer, a database engineer(the gizmo holds some data), a mathematician....
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Full stop
I can relate, now most of the companies want to hire a "DevOps" person, a hybrid Software Engineer/ Sysadmin. Ask Facebook, Google, Spotify with their stupid hiring process
All in the name of saving money! What a joke!
While I agree it's difficult to find work after graduating at the moment, is an employer looking for a graduate with a mechatronics degree (which does cover a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering) really so bizarre?
The employers are very fussy. They are really only interested in a perfect match to their needs. They don't want the cost to develop talent internally. They are even trying to combine positions to save money. I came across one employer trying to combine a mechanical and electrical engineer.
Read between the lines: "We can replace all of them with immigrants, but only if we can prove there's nobody who can fill the position. I know! Let's draft the requirements so they're impossible to fill, then hire the same person we would have anyway at half the price because we had to 'settle'. Brilliant!"
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
combining jobs is sometimes useful. otherwise to make a pocketwatch you'll need an ee, a materials engineer, an usability engineer, an ergonomics specialist, mechanical engineer, a sw architecht, a software programmer, a database engineer(the gizmo holds some data), a mathematician....
Well, no. To make a pocketwatch all you need to do is to copy an old pocketwatch whose design is in the public domain.
In order to make a fancy new electronic device that replaces a pocketwatch, you'll need all of those people. And rightly so.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The H1B war has succeeded and much champagne will be spilled. STEM majors are giving up as the field simply isn't worth going into in this country. Meanwhile I hear that McJobs are hiring and if you work really hard for a long time you might move from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week where you get really, really bad benefits!
I worked at a University for a few years and I saw bright US students routinely drop out of STEM and choose other fields because of outsourcing. Meanwhile the bright international students happily came over, took our STEM classes and are heading back to create the next great thing. We've engineered a future without ourselves, our founding fathers would be ashamed.
"I came across one employer trying to combine a mechanical and electrical engineer" This employer is looking for an experimental physicist and does not know it.
On another note, I see the same thing in the semiconductor industry for process and integration roles. Everyone wants a perfect match, when the real perfect match is someone that can learn quickly because things are going to change a lot on as quick as a 2 year time scale. I had a recruiter call about an internal position I applied for and he was trying to ask how many years I have in some exact skill when, at the end of the day, that stat is not nearly as important as being able to learn. It makes it even more frustrating when the req is at the level of a new PhD grad and I already have 4.5 years industry experience.
The pay isn't on parity with the level of schooling required, you would be better off becoming a doctor or even just a joe blow IT guy or something else. Unless you're putting all the patents in your name, It doesn't pay to be an engineer. Do it only if you enjoy it.
I loved to build when I was a kid. I loved Legos. Did you have tinkertoys? What can you say about tinker toys? Well, they're no legos.
I studied digital logic. I thought it would be neat to have an FPGA auxiliary card for my computer so I could load-up custom hardware configs for fun stuff.
I've had a few years of electrical engineering -- enough for the fun to wear off, a little. I worked at a image processing place. FPGAs can do lots of stuff... like... filters... and stuff. Whoo hoo! Filters!
As an EE with 7 years in the work force, I have to say that I'm in way over my head on work...
Being that electrical engineering is a pretty diverse field, its hard to generalize the need (or lack thereof) for EE's in the job force. I can honestly say that my bachelors and masters degrees in EE were pretty pointless and much of what I learned was on the job or from my own endeavours. I got into embedded system design and became a jack of all trades with the ability to do full out concept to deployment builds...hardware and software... Finding a guy that can design, build, and program a microcontroller/FPGA has me turning down people for work.
I have a full time job, work for a couple professors at a very good engineering university, formed an LLC and juggle 3 separate contracting gigs, and formed a startup that just got a patent.
My suggestion to other EE's out there is don't allow yourself to be pigeon-holed into a specific task and always try to learn new things. Universities will make you specialize in something... I just took the minimum to be a part of that specialization, but took as many other classes outside this realm on stuff that interested me. Work will only care about getting a product out the door and you'll end up being the guy that designs a voltage regulator circuit over-and-over again for various projects. Branch out and try new things. If you can't do it at work, do it in any spare time you might have. Interested in FPGA's? Buy a development kit on eBay for cheap. Want to learn how to solder? Pick up a hobby project...
I feel the more diverse you become in the EE field, the hotter commodity you will become to an employer...
I have been having a hard time deciding between these 2 disciplines lately. Being fond of math, physics and computers I'm really sure I want to do computer science with pure math but ECE seems to be tempting. Now this topic makes me believe that ECE is not really the way to go after all. So what do you guys think about the future of Computer Science (assuming I want to go to a top 10 grad school) and then move on to the job market. Is it better to double major in Cs and Pure math, applied math or physics? Does it have a better career choice?
In reality management follows this reasoning:
Management: We have more work then we can handle, training is boring so we need to hire someone who is a good match for what we need, some experience with tool chain we use.
Reality: They can't find anyone.
Management: We have far more work then we can handle, there is no room for training so we need to hire someone who is a very good match for what we need, 2 year experience with the exact tool chain we use down to version number.
Reality: They can't find anyone.
Management: We are drowning in work, we never heard of the word training, the recruitment costs are sky high so we will be offering peanuts for wages and we need someone who is an exact clone of an employee who escaped years ago.
Reality: They can't find anyone.
Management: We outsource/hire immigrants and blame the total collapse of our business on the local work ethic.
Management: We deserve a bonus!
CEO: Me too!
Board of directors: Agreed, if you agree to raise our compensation.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the recent years the productivity of electrical engineering tools have gone up several fold due to the ubiquitous cheap multi core workstations. The companies buying ECAD tools have demanded, and got, better use of these multi-core machines from the vendors of the ECAD tools. It has become cheap enough and easy enough to do electrical engineering simulations of hundreds or even thousands of variations of a basic design to refine it. Companies like Ansys have taken serving the high performance computing market as a priority. They are dishing out products that allow a single engineering work station to launch and analyze hundreds of simulations. This high productivity coincided with global economic downturn due to the financial systemic collapse of 2008, followed by tsunami in Japan, floods in Taiwan, economic turmoil in Europe and large scale civil uprisings in the middle east. So there are more electrical engineers than jobs in some parts of the field and some parts of the country. But this situation is temporary and the electrical engineers are going to see very good pay rise and job opportunities soon.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I have a BSc. EE (2000).
Since then I've worked in embedded programming, software development, hardware development, brought up bare metal hardware in linux, done custom FPGAs, worked with software defined radio, you name it. I've worked for others, I've run a company. I've done ok.
I'm a 5-digit UID member and I've read this blog long before that.
If I had to do it over again, I've had taken my Dad's advice - left the electronics to a hobby - and done medicine or another actual profession. Electrical Engineers do not have protection of law for their work and is not a "real" profession in the nature of Law or Medicine.
Even in the elite fields, salaries top out. I now work in technical business development and take home three times what I did in a technical role.
In short, if you're smart enough to be an EE, go do something else, and if you're smart about it, you can be financially independant in ~10 years and do whatever you want after.
Engineering is for suckers. the gig is up, though - people have to build things. Hopefully the salaries will rise to make it worth it again.
In the meantime.. don't let your kids grow up to be engineers. Teach them about compound interest instead.
Would take the comments here with a grain of salt. The sample size of unemployed to employed engineers on slashdot during the day is very high!
My training is in software, but in my recent job I have worked issues involving manufacturing processes, concrete spall, the dynamics of new grease in generator bearings, and thermal stresses on electronic components.
WRT the hobby thing, a lot of my current responsibilities involve networking, both long-haul and local, and I learned what I know wiring up my house. No courses, no certs...
It's good to learn a particular engineering discipline early on, but if you want to really show value to employers while continuing to do interesting things, my experience is that it's more about demonstrating logical, data-driven thinking than coding or soldering or somesuch...
I think his complaint is that to stay in the field he needs to develop his skills, but without seeing the 'rake in the cash' part - no matter how superhumanly skilled he may be, his wages won't reflect the effort put in.
There are fields with worse job prospects, yes, like much of the humanities. But the kind of person who can do well in an EE program has better alternatives these days. Hell, you have better prospects making websites in Ruby.
Whether the U.S. having a bunch of web-devs and no hard engineering talent is good long-term is another story. But today, if you want a well-paying job, pick up a web technology, not EE.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The entire H1B program is bullshit.
There is supply in the US. Companies prefer cheap imported labor - young, family-less, unlikely to complain labor instead of more expensive domestic labor.
"In 2010, there were nearly half a million workers on H1B visas in the United States, 18 percent higher than in 2001."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/are-americans-losing-high-skilled-jobs-to-foreigners/
Shitcan the H1B program and not only will the engineers we already have be able to find work but we'll have more engineers in the future to fill the need that will exist.
Assuming engineering work isn't all outsourced overseas, of course.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Graduated with a engineering degree and found a job reasonably quick. 10 other people from my class that I keep up with all found jobs within a year. Some of them had to travel to find them, and that's the key.
Look, if you keep a nice resume, don't act like a freak in the interview process, and are willing to move to get a job, there is no excuse for not finding work in America. None. I'm worried about the immigration problem in the future, but it hasn't fully taken effect yet. There ARE jobs out there, you have to go find them. If you've given yourself a radius of 5 miles and can't find anything, well that's your problem then.
Why do you think the number in the US is going down?
All the major electronics are manufactured in China. Don't you think the expertise would also be there?
Bring it back to the US. I see so much wasted talent in the engineering realm on a daily basis.
This is a pretty common thing. They aren't always looking for someone who is both, but someone who understands both.
There are a lot of EEs who can't figure out how a combustion engine even functions. There are a lot of MEs who can't understand basic circuit theory.
Considering how many times we use dynamos(generators) and electric motors, a complete lack of knowledge of one field or the other is a disaster.
This wasn't an odd requirement. I know several EEs who are self-taught MEs. Typically they are greasemonkeys who like to work on cars. They do very well because of their knowledge. I would bet that the company who had the dual requirement was an Industrial of some type.
I work with an engineer with both ME and EE degrees. He does good work.
The obama liberals will fix this by importing hundreds of thousands of H1B STEM workers. It's attached to their Amnesty plan.
For approx 6 months, a sr-level analog designer. Salary is better than average for this area (>150k). So far, applicants fall into these categories
1. People under 35 that do not understand what a senior-level engineer should be able to do.
2. Generic IE Wannabe-types that have no control-loop or magnetics experience.
3. delusional software-types that do not understand PCB layout for EMC compliance and DFM/DFT.
4. delusional software-types that think their ability to enter a schematic in SPICE and run a simulation makes them qualified.
5. project manager types that would not know a scope probe if it was shoved up their ass.
Not looking for a full-up Bob Pease, just a competent analog engineer. Too many mid-level people have left the field.
Exactly. INSTEAD of having a Cisco Guy AND a Sysadmin AND a Security guy and some Helldesk folks, they seem to want to combine all the positions into one. . . with the original workload NOT shrinking that supported 3-4 jobs, many companies now only want to fund one position. . .
Everything.
Legal labor.
Financial labor.
Manual labor.
Farm labor.
EVERYTHING.
There is only one common denominator. The US federal government. Its screwed up in every state not in every country.
No one industry or institution could explain such a broad disruption short of the only organization with that scope in our society.
I know this is controversal and I know a lot of people are just going to reflexively reject this point. But US labor laws are killing us.
A good example is the ban on IQ tests to offer people jobs. It sounds like a silly thing that doesn't matter. But there was a time when employers screened job applications with an IQ test. Then the federal government made that illegal because it discriminates against people that fail IQ tests... mostly people unfit to fill the position.
So what did companies do in response? They said " this job requires a college education"... even though it really doesn't. But that gets the company what it wants. A screened job application because people with college educations are much less likely to be idiots.
There are literally thousands of examples of US labor laws having unintended consequences and ultimately screwing over American workers. What is more sad is that most of these laws were written with the intention of protecting US workers.
But consider for example the latest genius idea of forcing US employers to provide healthcare to employees and then mandating that that healthcare be of a pretty high quality? Instant hiring freeze. Reduction in work hours. More part time labor. etc.
THIS is what is killing us. Remove most of these laws and just let people work out their own arrangements with employeers. People will get jobs. And in getting jobs they'll get work experience which will make them valuable.
Short of that... we're all on welfare that will be funded by currency devaluation... and the US becomes a banana republic.
It sounds extreme but its what is happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Locale is an important factor on that one; some small and medium sized businesses out in the boonies want everything under the sun and have no idea what they should be paying or what goes into learning the field so they ask low. Do understand Dice.com and some other sites are littered with HR companies that use an army of Indians to do job screening where these guys call literally hundreds of people asking "DO YOU WANT JOB $8 DOLLAR HOUR?" because to some companies' implement "turnover until you find someone cheap and good" or have the expectation everyone on the market is an idiot until proven otherwise. These companies are not ever successful. As with shopping for a car, there are certain things and certain scams you just learn to avoid. No I am not going to move from my city job out to a country bumpkin area and deliver to you enterprise level solutions at lunch-money prices because there's no sense in spending money on real-estate that has no jobs nearby and I ain't wasting money on rent.
When you hire an American college graduate with a school loan, you're in fact paying for their schooling when you hire them because their expectation when they enrolled is they'd be able to handle a school loan in addition to mortgage\rent payments along with having a family. Reality is if you're recently graduated with a school loan, you'd be lucky to pay back the loan, get an apartment, and eat at the same time on entry level wages for most advanced fields. Doctorate's and Masters degree's can go for up to half a million, Bachelor's degree's go for between 50-150k. Most Associates are, thankfully, still under $10k and can be had at for burger flipping money. At $40k your take-home is $2400 a month; before interest a $50k school loan is $400\month for 10 years leaving you with $2,000 which is in of itself somewhat reasonable, however if you double or triple that number, you quickly realize over half your income is going to the loan and the other half is going to an apartment near a job and you will be doing that for a DECADE!
As the labor shortage continues experienced EE's who have in-demand skills will become increasingly rare and that is a good position to be in because when the market begins to recover, you can name your price. Otherwise, you're in the sh!t right now might as well go for a masters. You may not be able to declare bankruptcy but you sure as hell can get your degree, transcript, et-cetra in writing and move overseas where the debt collectors will never find you.
I see very large numbers of smart and highly motivated students coming through my classes, both domestic and international. There is no shortage of students getting degrees in STEM fields. I believe the complaints stem from employers who don't want to pay a premium for better skilled engineers. There are in fact far more STEM job applicants than there are jobs. Graduates have to apply to hundreds of positions, and employers have to sift through thousands of resumes. Applications are so numerous, in fact, that HR departments are reduced to superficial checklists of buzzwords to efficiently sift through all the options. Employers want cheap laborors who nevertheless do a good job, while students who want to get paid appropriately to their skill level are getting Masters and Doctoral degrees in the hopes of being more "qualified." (In fact, they're often culled first for being OVER qualified and therefore too expensive.)
So, what companies are doing is a spin game. They report to federal funding agencies that there's a shortage, when in fact what they want is to increase the probability of identifying more skilled applicants that they can dupe into taking lower paying jobs. The end result is that there are too many people getting STEM degrees (when they would be better off doing other things), not enough job openings, and rising unemployment. We need plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and they can earn a good living, but nobody seems to care about them.
I'm an electrical engineer and manager of the same. It has been obvious to me for years what is going on.
When you offshore your manufacturing, you soon find that you need engineers on site to support production. They become the experts, while your need for American engineers decreases. That building expertise leads to the opening of offshore design centers and eventually new companies spring up that become your competitors and they employ no Americans at all.
Look, if you keep a nice resume, don't act like a freak in the interview process, and are willing to move to get a job, there is no excuse for not finding work in America. None.
So any increase in unemployment must be due to people suddenly forgetting how to write resumes, starting to act like freaks, and being less willing to move despite greater desperation.
What major in engineering are you?
Electronics, power systems, instrument, controls, biomedical?
The only electrical engineers I've heard of who are out of a job are the ones who studied a dead art in their country. I.e. micro-electronics is most definitely not very in demand in the USA with only really a handful of big companies who are desirable to work for. Biomedical companies do micro-electronics but often require some part of biomedical as your major. I've never come across a power systems or instrument engineer out of work. There seems to be endless demand for them in the resources sector.
That's because software engineering pays better. And many EEs are well suited for that as well.
Most security gigs are tailored around having a military background. You might not have noticed yet but give it another 10 years and you'll start to get the picture. (Sort of like being ex-military is an unwritten prerequisite for a lot of police forces now.) That's why the TLA agencies (and cops for that matter) all have that "kill dem all, let gwad sort 'em out" attitude. (see sig below)
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
I think in any skilled or professional roll there a "pay your dues" period where you are being underpaid for the work you may be doing. You need to take that time and leverage it to increasing responsibility and pay.
The new normal seems to be to cycle through these underpaid new hires, never letting them "increase responsibility and pay" thus minimizing (apparent if not actual) labor costs.
"I came across one employer trying to combine a mechanical and electrical engineer.' That's called mechatronics and its quite an interesting field. Even tho electrical and electronics engineers would love to live in their nice white and black schematic world, reality is that any electrical equipment has shape and size - therefore any electronics or electrical specialist should know a bit about mechanics. At least enough to get the requierements about their electrical equipment over to mech engineer or to figure out the layout of components in principle.
The pool is plenty big, it's the employers not wanting to hire and train EEs that's the problem. They'll all say there aren't enough US engineers, but that's a crock. What they really mean is, as one of the posters above said, it's easier to "maximize shareholder value" by hiring H1Bs, who work long hours because they have to go home if they're laid off. Employers love this situation.
I've been doing EE for over 30 years, and my secret (aside from loving what I do) is to keep learning and try not to get pigeonholed. If I had taken a well-paying job in the 90s doing gate array verification, I'd probably be out of work right now. Instead, I worked for a networking company, designing intelligent controllers, knowledge I could use when I was laid off and hired by a consulting firm to do embedded design.
Keep learning, and if you're young with no experience, look for small companies who are trying to make it. Ask for a job as an intern and work your way up. To some extent, you're paying (by taking a lower salary) the experience you get, but that experience will get you your next job. If you really love engineering, you'll have a workshop at home and play with stuff on your own as well. It's all grist for the mill. A small company loves multi talented employees, a huge corporation could care less. I wish I had been brave enough to start small when I got my first job.
Any increase in unemployment in engineering, yes. There are still plenty of engineering jobs. If you're claiming you can't find one, the first step would be to get off Slashdot, you won't find any jobs here.
You're making a joke, but you've come the closest to the real issue of any comments I've seen here. There are certainly basic infrastructural issues as the rest of the world comes online with technological capabilities, I don't deny that. But I don't believe that's what's really going on in the US now.
We've put economic rapists at the top of the US economy.
For the most part, if they were to be evaluated at their jobs the way we are evaluated at outs, the should be fired. For the most part, they're one-trick ponies - cut costs, and they're generally only doing so in the most brutish ways, nothing subtle, clever, or truly transformative. The only imaginative thing about the job that they're doing is that they imagine the compensation they're receiving for it.
(I said "For the most part" because there are notable exceptions, like Elon Musk and the late Steve Jobs. (though there were other problems with Jobs...))
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If you want Americans to study engineering, provide secure jobs for them.
"What can you say about tinker toys?"
I can say that they make much better "Transformers" than Lego blocks.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
> ...
> We need plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and they can earn a good living
>
They can? In the metropolis where I reside there are more plumbers, electricians, and carpenters than you can shake a stick at. The competition among them is fierce. I would not want to be a novice plumber, electrician, or carpenter looking to start a new career. There is a glut of everything.
Still, I'd like to see some hard stats.
should be apprenticeship with mixed trades school and apprenticeships. Not just an 4 year school with an apprenticeships after that.
In the 90's, more Universities started Computer Engineering majors, which combined the digital half of a standard EE degree with the less theoretical half of a standard CS degree. (I know -- I was a year or two too early for CE, so I got an EE instead.) I would bet that any EE job that has a significant embedded software component is called something else now.
BSEE here, never engineered a circuit professionally in my entire life. I probably never will.
As others have noted, we often become developers. That was my path, between long phases of un or under-employment. On the one hand, I lacked knowledge of some algorithms that CS majors might have had. On the other, I think I may have been more attuned to low-level issues. There were some CS courses in our curriculum. Most of my programming was taken up "on the side" though. Strangely, my parents said that I'd have to attend a local community college if I wanted to major in CS. They were usually not heavy-handed about things like that. It was an unusual exception most likely brought about by the story that the son of a friend graduated and made $50k/yr right away (1980s, consider inflation). Later when I asked about this they said, "you could have switched majors". I'm not sure if I could have done that without them finding out. I always figured EE wouldn't hurt me. When I graduated, there were a lot of very traditional companies interviewing us--companies that might have mentored EEs; but it became obvious at the time that I wouldn't fit the mold.
LOL, yeah. I'm going to work for the power company??? At an aerospace plant??? Not happening. The strangest interview was with a tobacco company. Apparently they had a fairly sophisticated system for blending tobacco and making cigarettes. Very sophisticated electro-mechanical automation, probably computer controlled. I came away thinking "I drive myself crazy the past 4 years to come up with a slightly more efficient way of poisoning people". I think they wanted the guy with the master's degree anyway. It was a small group interview actually. There were 3 of us in one room hearing the guy talk about these "hoppers" full of tobacco, and how good the benefits would be if we were hired. Funny the things your remember.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Seriously, I am a EE of 15 years and I have given that advice to several shocked STEM wannabe's finishing up high school. It runs so counter to all the cheer leading they get.
The only way to make it is to get specialized in an already niche field. You then become a technical nomad, trekking across the country (or globe) from one dying or mismanaged company to the next for a few more years. The work is damn hard, the pay only OK, and your co-workers are an interesting story (sausage fest, lots of imports with language issues, almost all lacking a full deck of social skills). Expect that other than your basics, that your knowledge's value will have a half life of about 5 years, meaning you have to constantly build up new skills, often without your present company's support. If you thrive on hard technical challenges you can find your reward there, but that is about it.
Yeah, go into business or accounting or some such.
also over focus on college over trades / people who learned on there own in IT
guys just turn the table on them , this is what I've been doing for the last decade , i.e picking the lets say top 3 skills on job offers in my field (IT) every year , training/certifying on it and then slapping a x% raise on my salary demands for those headhunters , it's also a great tool to negotiate your annual pay raise since you already have a portfolio of potential / interested employers with those new extra skills brought to you by the headhunters that got attracted by those skill
Any increase in unemployment in engineering, yes. There are still plenty of engineering jobs.
Even if you had 20% unemployment there would still be 80% employed, which means "plenty of engineering jobs". What's your point?
If you're claiming you can't find one, the first step would be to get off Slashdot, you won't find any jobs here.
Already got one thanks (and I should get back to it now). In the last 30 years I've never been unemployed long. Yes, I'm good at what I do, but I know other folks just as good who had much worse luck than me. Don't act cocky just because you got your first job - I got my first job before I even graduated. Go around the block a few times and then let me know how your perspective has changed.
I graduated in the recession of 2002. I struggled finding that first job. As mentioned above, absolute catch 22. Very few want to hire a recent graduate, everyone wants an EE with 2-4 years of experience. I got my lucky break and started with a decent salary; nothing mind blowing, but decent. It's now 11 years later, I carry a Senior EE title and make a little more than double my initial pay and am pretty topped out salary wise as far as I can see. Management is unfortunately the only way up. I've worked at large companies who simply do not even consider hiring an EE (or software developer for that matter) over 50. We were building a team for a new product within an organization and weren't able to consider older candidates. 50 is the end of the rope for anyone with a tech title and without management anything. Jobs can probably be found but pay is not going to be high. I'm forcing myself to highlight my management experience (be it project, personnel, etc.) as I look for my next position as this is the best way I see to stay relevant and continue the career progressing upward. Good luck to all EEs out there!
Part of the problem is the general incompetence of fresh graduates. And, it's not really their problem - universities are not preparing people to solve real problems. Perhaps they are more interested in teaching the latest and greatest technological buzzwords, rather than teaching fundamentals and solid engineering skills.
I work for a large oil field services company. We recently went through a round of hiring. Through my own experiences interviewing candidates, and from what I have learned by way of my colleagues - the vast majority of the candidates were *severely* lacking (to put it nicely) in being able to use and explain fundamental concepts. I'm talking about being able to apply V=IR, what it means to 'calibrate' something, and how to identify inputs and outputs in a system. There is no excuse for not knowing such fundamental concepts. We weren't interested in any particular specialization as we are completely willing to train our hires, and allow them time to learn any tools, techniques, or theory they may need to get the job done. The goal was to hire good, sharp engineers who can help us solve problems. We tried asking questions that transcend any 'specialization' within Electrical/Computer Engineering ... Unfortunately, they just didn't have good *engineering* minds.
By the way, the candidates all had decent GPAs from good engineering schools - many of them were graduate students.
Preferably unpaid interns. Second in preference are outsourced $2/hour engineers in Sumwaristan. Absolutely dead last are competent, well paid native English-speaking engineers who can be brought up to speed in a month or two.
Competence and actual productivity of new hires are irrelevant. Neither quality shows up on a spreadsheet. If they do, they can't easily be traced back to the division head who made the hiring policies. If some troublemaker points out the problem, the division head will have moved on to another company or division before it becomes a problem.
An MBA is now the last resort for psychopaths who are just functional enough and smart enough to avoid jail.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
>We need plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and they can earn a good living, but nobody seems to care about them.
Not based on the difficulty to get an apprenticeship. Recently there was a piccy on reddit of an apprenticeship offering by a local IBEW. They were taking applicants between 1 pm and 3 pm on a certain day. The line was over 1 km long. I doubt they even managed to see 100 meters worth of people. Companies have absolutely no interest in hiring any of those trades for exactly the reasons you've given for your trades.
Mechatronics Engineering is an accredited program at some universities.
sigs are for suckers
Worldwide? Maybe. In the US? Not so certain.
The US has a $4 trillion manufacturing sector. The need for engineers isn't going to go away at all. The need for specific types of engineers will fluctuate but there will always be jobs for engineers.
Accounting. Skilled trades. Nursing, or possibly MD. Lawyer. Maybe even an MBA if I can stomach having one in the family.
A MBA is a degree, not a profession. A cheap shot like that might get a laugh but it also makes you sound a bit ignorant. People get a MBA to learn how to manage a business but their primary professions vary wildly. People with MBA degrees work in finance, accounting, engineering, sales, marketing, IT and of course general management. It's not a single profession and never will be. People get the degree to learn certain skills that are outside the scope of their primary profession. Just because you are a smart engineer or a doctor or a lawyer doesn't mean you know the first thing about how to make a budget or to calculate a net present value or how to market your company. One way to learn these skills is through formal schooling and a MBA is one way to do that.
LOL!!!
With the current "education" system, you would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if you want to be degree'ed credentialed to get a position like that.
No way you would ever recover the costs of those degrees.
You would be a serf for the rest of your life.
But at least you would be an employed serf!
LOL!!!!
I personally can't wait for this whole institutionalized industrial college complex to crash and burn. Most of the rot with college degrees and other crap is all based around the current push for globalization which that too, will crash and burn.
Absolutely hilarious.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I have an EE degree but rarely do any circuit design. I'm a system-level design type of person and I'd jump at a job that also allowed me opportunities to do some mechanical design work on top of EE work. The more varied skills I have the more employable I will be to my next employer and the more I can command. Sure, if the experience isn't relevant to them they may not like it but it denotes a certain level of trainability and adaptability that many other candidates won't have. Plus, I'm not looking for the same job I had before, when I'm looking for work. I want something new, something interesting, something different. Maybe it's just me.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
The airlines have been doing this forever.
I wish I could mod you up.
I agree with what you're saying. I have graduate degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering - yes, it's both at a top tier state school in the States. An overwhelming majority of my fellow grad students were not Americans. In some classes, there were only two Americans (including me). The ROI in engineering is far lower than what you would make in consultant or finance. I entered the consulting field 7 years ago and my starting salary was much higher that what I would have made in engineering. It shows that compensation is skewed for the level of difficulty of work (e.g. engineering). It's a sad truth.
Just cause we are not working (posting on /.) doesn't mean we are unemployed, just gold bricking.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
We will import electrical engineers from X. Meanwhile we will get more english and liberal arts majors.
This is unrelated to the EE issue. The reason the bottom fell out of IT salaries is primarily due to a unscrupulous marketing campaign of Microsoft's around the turn of the Millennium praising the advantages adopting Active Directory.
Active Directory will save you lots of money! You will no longer need a full-time administrator!
Once employers took the bait is when we first started to see job ads asking for CS PhDs for the $12.50/hr part-time admin positions... and it just escalated from there.
The simple fact of the matter is that the world is over populated. In order to have a chance at a non-menial career, people go to colleges and universities. But because so many people want a non-menial career, there is a vast oversupply of people from those programs.
As a result, companies have to sift through thousands of resumes looking for the wheat in the chaff. Often they'd rather go with the simpler/easier solution of outsourcing the problems of development and design to a company (usually overseas) that they can sue if there are any problems with the results. With an internal staff, the worst you can do is fire them. There is no option for recovering the monies spent or for the "damage" done by the flaws.
Globally, the world is in a tough place. Our whole social mentality is based on the idea that some people are more skilled than others, and therefore deserve more money. But when you look at the aggregate population, there just flat out aren't enough jobs that demand those high skill sets compared to the number of people being educated in those fields.
Consider this: How many people does it take to design something like a phone? On the bright side, it's a relatively large team -- probably a couple dozen to a hundred skilled and trained people. On the downside, that one small team is responsible for a product that (hopefully) sells in the millions of units around the globe. Compared to the market serviced, the efforts of the team are paltry and employ an extremely small number of people.
And the more we globalize and standardize products, the more that problem of "less talent needed" becomes. We're already at a point where the vast majority of the parts in something like a phone are standard components available from a very few vendors.
There is no solution to this problem. We need a mental shift to evolve into a socialist society rather than one that depends on money to determine wealth and reward. But how and when this shift will happen is anybody's guess. I hope it doesn't take the form of leaving millions of people on welfare and social assistance fomenting an eventual rebellion for us to realize that we just can't justify a world where CEOs make hundreds of times what their workers do. Hell, we can't even justify a world where someone makes ten times what someone else does.
At the same time, the critical shift has to happen personally. People need to realize that they need to have enough for a comfortable living, not a luxurious one. But greed is an inherent part of the human animal, so I don't foresee that happening any time soon.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
As a college freshman I took a course that studied the book, "The Existential Pleasures of Engineering." I already loved the math and programming so this high tome had me thinking I was really getting into something special.
I am an MSEE who did very well out of school. Got lost in the Dot.com implosion and spent a few years contracting, etc. When it was good, it was really good. Now that I am older (mid 40s) things are pretty bad. I opted to stay technical rather than management, marketing or sales and I feel like an aged stripper trying to sell lap dances at the club. I have the skill but the package does not look quite as inviting. I LOVE engineering and am reasonably good at it in addition to not being a pain in the ass to coworkers, but alas, that does not matter to most employers. Recruiters call me constantly but no interviews. I finally took an IT job (contract) at about the same pay I made right out of college(!) Sad, but I too will discourage my kids from entering this field. You cannot eat Existential Pleasure...
I run a small robotics firm that needs engineering talent. I long ago started outsourcing, and I no longer hire engineers. In fact, everyone I know in industry( and I know some pretty rich people ) does the same thing.
Here's why:
1. Sales are project based. I maybe get a sale for a few K to design a small robot to do a single thing. This means I don't want to keep employees on board doing nothing when I don't have a project sold. If you have w-2 guys on staff, there's tremendous pressure to do something with them -- often that means speculative design, looking for a buyer. 90% of time, the speculation is wasted -- along with the resources used to speculate. So, I'd much rather have engineers when I need them. Why else does Microsoft make stupid projects like Bob or ForeFront -- they got engineers and they speculate in software... most of it fails. Most consumer firms do this -- they're just good about hiding the 90% failures( brands, prototypes, limited test pools, etc... )
2. Thanks to Open Source, I no longer have to do much to design many robots -- find some projects using similar tech, and pull it in. Want to control stepper motors to drive a robot? RAMPS( Thanks open source 3d printer guys! You allowed me to fire the guys I would have used for my control circuit. ) No need for software, either -- there's always an open source project that does any control I want. In many projects, I've never even had to modify a line of code or redesign a single circuit I've found from Open Source. I literally use it stock. Without Open Source, I'd have to hire people on these projects. ( You guys really should listen to the Joker's advice from The Dark Knight -- if you're good at something, never do it for free... But it won't matter -- even if I tell you not to, as a group, you'll keep giving it away, and I'll keep using it for free...)
3. The few times I want to do something not in open source, like design a circuit or optimize a process, I can outsource. Pakistan has fantastic EEs for $11 an hour. Hell, my US hair-stylist makes more than that. And, they'll send me a full prototype assembled, no rework needed. When I used to use US labor, I'd pay between $70 and $150 an hour, depending on the guy, and I'd have a hard time getting assembled boards in the timeframe I wanted. The Pakistanis do no worse than the Americans, but I have to hand rework less when I hire them and I pay a fraction of what I paid the American.( often getting a fully working board for the same price I would have paid just in labor time to design the circuit... )
4. Americans aren't desperate enough. I've tried, really tried, to keep some work in America( and Canada ). Often, Americans I have hired has had some stupid issue, and failed to deliver anything at all. I get excuses like, "Oh, my kids are sick and I can't work this week on the project." Or, "My house is being remodeled and I need more time." Or, "This other guy is paying me more, so I'll put you on the back burner for the week". These are real excuses I get. Remember, I have a contract I need to deliver on -- and my reputation suffers if I don't deliver -- and I'm paying $150 an hour to you to deliver it -- and what am I getting? Excuses. Nothing pisses me off more than paying a guy, sometimes an advance, a really good wage, and getting bupkis in return. This is actually the biggest reason I outsource -- I'd gladly pay a good price to someone if I know they'll put in some effort every week.
This cracked article is absolutely true: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
Americans just don't work -- they're not desperate enough, and most people, if not desperate, will put things like Family and home first. That Pakistani EE lives in a culture where the wife is at home, taking care of the sick kids and scheduling cheap labor to come repair the house. He just needs less support than an American in order to deliver. And, the Pakistani knows if he doesn't deliver, I won't pay him. Not a threa
I'm an EE, working for a small SI/contract house that's been in business since 1985.
We're innundated with work right now--the problem is NOT finding contracts. It's finding qualified engineers that don't already have a gig. Still, the Clients remember the "bad economy" prices and believe those should persist. Our rates have not gone up in years.
At some level of management, the perception is that engineers and skilled trades are interchangeable commodities.
The Client's argument seems to be that "There are 7 billion of us. Somewhere out there is a person with the exact skill set we need. We just have to find that person. Their services should cost no more than any other."
The Client must understand that if they want a specific skill set and aren't willing to "invest in people", they have to pay us to make the same investment. Most of us are permanent employees where I work. You don't pick up a random engineer on the street and find they're competent and have a good work ethic; those people have jobs already. Between gigs, you carry those folks so they're available when the next gig shows up. And when the work gets heavy, those people work a lot harder. To retain those folks, you have to pay them. This is "investing in people". At the end, the service we provide reflects that investment. Through a contract or as a direct employee, it still must be paid.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
At least if you are a college intern, you are actually paying to work (tuition for the class).
Is it easier to blame external factors (racism, "people in it for the money") when faced with continued failure in life? Is it hard to say that you're simply rather stupid and/or avoid hard work?
We need plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and they can earn a good living, but nobody seems to care about them.
So we can re-inflate the housing bubble with a lot of new homes that no one can really afford to buy?? The fact is all those who were in the construction/housing market are struggling themselves.
There was a day that as a nation we would take on national infrastructure projects to help stimulate the economy. But we have a congress much more willing to sit on their hands than account for themselves.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Nice to see in general things are consistent. I have EE, CS, and CE degrees, yet I couldn't get employed when I graduated 10 years ago in these fields. Therefore, my 'degrees' are no longer good enough to be employed. I apply for a passport and they talk of restricting it because of my needed talents, yet I can't get a job in the field I trained in. I work in the IT field because that is where my experience is.
The reason the US labor market is terrible is because corporations do not want to pay their workers a living wage, nor train them. They want workers who will work for 2 dollars per hour for 12 to 16 hours per day. If they get sick, they get fired and will simply die without health care. This means wonderful profit margins for the corporations who funnel them to offshore accounts so they no longer have to pay any taxes on them.
Your Ayn Rand solution, doesn't work. All it will do is lead to further wealth inequalities and reduced quality of life for all but the top 1% of the population.
Wrong.
Corporations... US or otherwise never want to pay people because they're human beings and human beings would rather get something for nothing.
Right? If I were giving away free sandwiches wouldn't you take the free sandwich? Of course. Its free. So this "US corporation" garbage ignores that this feature is build into humanity itself and is not an artifact of American business culture.
Furthermore, we weren't always screwed up. So if this feature were the cause all along we NEVER would have had a better labor market. Since the labor market is worse now then it was before, you can't cite this as being the causal element.
You might not like my argument. But unlike your own it is logical. Your argument ignores known variables and is self contradictory.
I regret is that is ideologically painful for you. But you're basically mathematically wrong. Its not possible.
Furthermore, your argument would only hold true if all US corporations were a singular entity that was entirely uniform. They can't be. Companies and their policies vary from one to another and then industries vary.
What we are seeing today is an across the board issue throughout all industries and throughout all companies. There is no one company or group of companies that could have that effect.
The only organization capable of effecting every US industry in every state at the same time is the US federal government. Name another.
Look, I'm not saying I have all the answers. Maybe I've missed something. But do not cite things as being the cause when their scope is not sufficient to cause the observed result.
Again... Be logical.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
> Even if you had 20% unemployment there would still be 80% employed, which means "plenty of engineering jobs". What's your point?
Plenty of available jobs? Nobody graduating cares about jobs that they can't get because they're already filled. A strong manufacturing/engineering sector doesn't help you unless it's growing.
Take your EE background and rigor, and get a career in software. You'll have an edge over the hipsters and will find it easy to rise.
me:
BS Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech.
MS Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech
Some of the most talented programmers I work with are EE or physics guys.
This is the 1st phase of the demographic "band gap" kicking. During the 90s fewer EEs were hired (actually most engineering degrees; ME also) so there is a gap between under 50 and over 30. This was a combination of post-Boomer GenX size differences combined with the economics of the engineering profession and jobs during the 1990s changing. Between age discrimination, outsourced manufacturing, retirement and death that upper over-50 modal has and is dropping out of the population entirely. So you should expect a precipitous decline because there is essentially no cohort following them.
One of the big problems is most of what they know has never been passed on so much of the tacit engineering knowledge the US used to have is and will be simply evaporating. Key of this is how to manufacture. It will have to be rebuilt over a new generation from scratch but during that time it will not be competitive with foreign manufacturing countries that don't have this demographic gap.
pluto space port for spacebattleships
THAT is the truth that needs to be drilled into the entire STEM educational system.
As an EE with over 30 years experience, some of in my fields of expertise, some of it not so that I could pay bills, it is obvious to any working Engineer that the vast majority of corporations do NOT want an Engineer who will attempt to apply scientific principles and ethical principles to the corporations use of technology.
Corporations, every single one I have dealt with, want to use the registered PE already responsible legally for "the design" as the first-line supervisor of the crafts and contracted support whom they can scapegoat with every bad decision they and the (usually union backed) crafts make. (NOT always a union problem, but in my experience it is MUCH worse in states without right-to-work statutes. PLEASE do not turn this into a pro-anti-union debate, it is a minor part of the issue which needs to be included in the discussion.)
My present employer has refused to fill an open position in a first-line supervisor position for the entire seven years I have worked at the facility; regardless of the fact that I personally have handed copies of resumes from unemployed peers with EE degrees and PE registration who are ready and willing to take the positions, even though they understand as I do the scapegoating which they will endure.
My Mechanical Engineer peers at the facility are about to be made responsible for BOTH being the responsible (legal PE-wise) Engineer, and the construction contract adminisrator and first-line supervisors for major plant modifications. That is not only ethically wrong, in some industries there are regulatory prohibitions against it.
The ONLY reason I am even attempting to remain gainfully employed is because the government has broken the entire financial system to the point that my savings are close to being insufficient for ANY kind of "early retirement".
Even if you had 20% unemployment there would still be 80% employed, which means "plenty of engineering jobs". What's your point?
I was talking about available jobs. They are definitely out there, just not always right where you live. It's hard when you settle down with a family in one spot, and then you job is gone and you need a job within a 50 mi radius, but that's the reality for any career. If you can stay mobile you will always find work (and interview well, and do a good job).
Don't act cocky just because you got your first job
I know how bad things can get, but they aren't bad yet. At least not when you compare to jobs outside the STEM field. It is still the best place to be on average.
Rather sounds like the job market is shrinking, making the labor pool too large...
This has been the case since the mid-90s, when many professional EEs were being laid off and not backfilled.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.