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.'"
The last 2 decades, China, Korea and Taiwan became electronic device manufacturing powerhouses. At first they would only manufacture devices engineered in the west, but now they are creating a huge range of devices on their own and flooding the world markets with them.
But yeah, H1Bs are at fault. I'm pretty sure that the loss of jobs in the automobile industry is also because of them.
Seriously, can we all drop the xenophobia and realize that America is losing jobs because it's becoming less competitive, and not because of a few immigrants? How difficult is it to realize that other countries now excel at what only America knew how to do right not too long ago?