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Electrical Engineering Lost 35,000 Jobs Last Year In the US
dcblogs writes "Despite an expanding use of electronics in products, the number of people working as electrical engineers in U.S. declined by 10.4% last year. The decline amounted to a loss of 35,000 jobs and increased the unemployment rate for electrical engineers from 3.4% in 2012 to 4.8% last year, an unusually high rate of job losses for this occupation. There are 300,000 people working as electrical engineers, according to U.S. Labor Department data analyzed by the IEEE-USA. In 2002, there were 385,000 electrical engineers in the U.S. Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, called the electrical engineering employment trend 'truly disturbing,' and said, 'just like America's manufacturing has been hollowed out by offshoring and globalization, it appears that electrical and electronics engineering is heading that way.'"
Is it possible that companies are afraid of US-bugged hardware, or is it automation invalidating jobs for the moment?
Sure, jobs are important, but how many electrical engineers died?
Does anyone have any speculation about why this is happening?
A lot of EEs used to be needed to design discrete circuits. Nowadays most of that probably gets implemented in SW. So maybe not so many are needed any more?
There are still jobs out there for power engineers - I have a friend that works at a construction engineering firm and they have trouble finding qualified and experienced electrical engineers to fill some positions.
I'd imagine that a lot of electronics design work has been outsourced to the same companies that are building the electronics, and probably a lot of the tricky electrical design work has been replaced by digital electronics. Using a 16Mhz microcontroller might be overkill to read at a few analog inputs to generate some outputs, but your offshore manufacturer can likely use an off-the-shelf design to implement it for less than the cost of using discrete chips.
I am guessing a lot of them just have different titles now.... I worked as an Electrical Engineer at a company for 2 years, though my education and expertise is in Computer Engineering. I suspect there's more to the story than these numbers are telling
Maybe someone could hire one of those guys to make an ATM without an OS in it? Seems like there is a job opening there.
I don't see why an ATM needs more than a simple UI+card reader deal that talks to the server and shows what ever is says, and a cash dispenser that obeys signed commands from said server. Needs sound output (for the blind), but thats not hard (we have that in joke greeting cards now even...). Freaking dumb terminal, not windows install. We need some EE guys to fix what the software IT morons are doing. With the job loss, I bet they are cheap too, and the resulting product is way cheaper and more secure as well.
Oh, same for voting machines. Did all the industries simply decide EE was dumb, because we really still need these guys, and we are missing them.
EE is a clinic of a field that created its own destruction by being able to relentlessly eliminate circuitry and therefore jobs. Everything can now be done at the atomic level in an IC and done with countless layers of software.
The exceptions as I see them are power, both AC power distribution and the stuff that drives electric motors from toys to giant machinery. The other field I see is what's called "mechatronics" (which I find an awful word), but probably is more like PLCs and industrial controls.
Another problem with EE is the fact that I've never seen professional EE associations like they have for accountants or actuaries or lawyers, economists, notaries, etc. Most of what *those* people do is something that could be as easily outsourced as EE work. Notarize a deed? Really? A photocopy and a signature? That's more important than a design?
And let's face facts, most of what passes as an electrical "engineering" job is just glorified clerical work.
The writing has been on the wall for a long time, and the wall itself has been built by outsourced labor from second-tier plastic bricks.
A. Fast Food.
B. Walmart
C. Prison Guard
That is all.
Here's some data points, and a question for the economists:
1) Productivity has been rising for decades. US productivity per capita is about $51,000 this year. That's $50,000 per person, including kids and non-working spouses.
2) Human needs follow a "priority queue"; meaning, that once a level of need is satisfied there is no further demand. Population needs will plateau and become steady - there is no "infinite demand" for more goods. If you have all the food you need, you don't consume more even if it's free &c.
2a) And population is stabilizing in all industrialized nations. Birth rate less than 2.0 per woman in the US, our population only grows due to immigration. Similar in other industrialized nations.
Given this data, here's a hypothetical question: Suppose efficiency grows so that the infrastructure could produce all the needs of the population using only 90% of the current workforce.
Q: What happens to the unneeded 10% workforce?
For a follow-on, consider Google's self-driving car. There are currently around 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US, which is about 2% of the total work force. This doesn't count delivery vehicles such as FedEx, UPS, or USPS. Very soon this ~3% of the workforce will no longer be needed.
Q2: Are we already in this "10% is unneeded" situation?
Corporate America is making a very clear statement. They will not hire Americans under these rules and we can't make them.
We need to really do a gut check on a lot of our labor policies, taxes, and regulations that effect labor prices in the US and... then ask ourselves if we'd rather keep the laws as they are and accept high levels of permanent structural unemployment... or if we're willing to compromise to get people into careers.
The whole issue is very politically charged. A gaggle of people might well respond to this post calling me names for suggesting compromise here. But the thing is labor policies are irrelevant to you if you don't have a job and can't get one.
So the labor policies are doing NOTHING for those people. Consider changing the laws so it actually helps them get and keep a job... and we'll actually be moving in a more positive direction.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
According to the BLS report from 2012, there were 295k electrical & electronic engineers, and an additional 80k computer hardware engineers, who aren't counted in the total for whatever reason.
According to the BLS report from 2002, there were 272k EEs and an additional 67k computer hardware engineers.
So that's a total of 375k in 2012 and 339k in 2002. If my math is right, that's a growth rate of 1% per year. The US population growth rate averaged over the last ten years is around 0.9%.
So what am I missing? Where is TFA getting their startling decline from?
Seriously, if there is hard to find work in your field, why not move? I don't mean move to Texas or Oregon, but move to Germany or the UK.
There are loads of engineering openings here in Germany and not enough Germans to fill them. If you are coming from the US to a German company, it is really easy to get a VISA.
Yes, I know not everyone can do so because of this or that reason, but a lot of people can.
Do not follow cheap manufacturing. Instead look to countries who spend loads of money on educating their young. Like Germany. It seems like such a basic concept that American politicians and much of the public do not understand; If you do not properly educate your population then eventually the country will collapse. No purely consumer based society is sustainable.
" . . . just like America's manufacturing has been hollowed out by offshoring and globalization . . ."
America's manufacturing "jobs" have been hollowed out more by our automation efforts than off-shoring and globalization. America's manufacturing output is up over the last couple of decades, but for every 100+ factory floor workers you now have a single highly trained technician watching over and tweaking the equipment.
Think of it this way: there are 35 thousand fewer people sending real work to China.
is Change We Need. Yes We Can!
Great question.
I heard in one of the presidential speeches that the need for foot solders is waning and more highly trained technical personnel is waxing.
So, to take your hypothetical question even further . . . what happens when 20% or even 50% of the workforce is no longer needed to produce what we all need to survive or even thrive? How do the economics work out then?
Electrical engieneering is not the same as electronics engieneering, one works with cables and powerlines, other works with IC-s and PCB-s. These two fields are worlds apart. Why would anyone lump them together buggles my mind.
There are plenty of "R" in the USA. The "D", on the other hand, is losing ground to places like Singapore, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, China, and yes, India.
If you go to south of the border, yes, that country famous for the "la cucaracha" song, they have a lot of "D" lab, while in the USA, many of the "D" guys are either retired, or are actively looking for jobs in Mexico or China.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Whether we're talking analog or digital, there are so many great PLD and system-on-chip solutions out there in the electronics realm that there really isn't that much electrical engineering that needs to be done these days.
Even for the discrete circuits, present theory and software are so robust that what used to be expert work has become technician work. Many of these things have reached the "bicycle stage," like most of Tesla's designs.
I think the only thing to reverse this trend would be a new ground-breaking discovery in physics... something with a practical application that would require new theories, new skills, new materials, and new software.
Thirty five years ago, there were at least 50,000 workers employed in electronics manufacturing in the RTP area of NC. I was one of them. I started as an assembler, then as a technician and later as a design engineer. During the 90s, most of these jobs quickly disappeared. Today, there a few small niche players left employing perhaps a few hundred workers. That's it.
I retrained as a software developer and successfully changed careers. It was difficult.
I'm not surprised to see reality check stories like this, particularly after being treated to incessant propaganda about shortages of STEM students over the past couple years. This shortage talk has been going on for decades. Yet, no actual shortages of engineers have materialized.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
People buy arduinos, and a shield, and all of a sudden they think they're EE's. Any moron can plug a few PCB's together and not know anything about how they work.
Try building something with a Z80 or 68000 and we'll talk.
Shouldn't we be celebrating this as a triumph of capitalism. A 10% culling of the Electrical Engineering workforce will mean that the price of that labour can be driven down to near poverty levels for a skilled profession. Prices will fall and everyone will be happy.
Except the E.E's - but as long as we're ok, everything is good - but hey it can never happen to us, right?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I visited my sister's family over the Holidays and my Electrical Engineer brother-in-law is a manager for an aircraft company. His group designs Electronic Counter Measures for military aircraft. He stated that he was going to have to lay off people from his team after the Holiday break. I would think many of these people could transition into positions of Data Center Engineers, Database Administrators or perhaps Network Engineers. At my previous employer, a large well known global website, I was the only DBA without an engineering degree (B.S. Business Admin - MIS major)- engineers apparently make great DBAs. The director over the DBA group at the website has a Masters in Electrical Engineering.
True story: Some Colorado copper miners went on strike back in the day. The copper company hired a "security" firm to show them the error of their ways by opening fire on them with gatling guns. These men lived in canvas tents with their wives in children. They had nowhere to take cover other than in the tents. There is a damn good reason we have these labor laws.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
Welcome to the consequences of stagnation.
Last time it was the general manufacturing industry that decided they could sit on things and didn't need engineers. Guess how that turned out.
Time to change careers or learn Mandarin.
We had this discussion here lately about how technology changes our working world. OC a lots of BS has been thrown to feed flame-war like technology will replace 100% jobs and other nonsense but I think we have reached the stage of development where we no longer need so many highly educated people at least not in economical and technological sense. This combined with globalization make a difference. I can see this with my friends and family but also in statistics of labour market as well as wealth stratification in society. In the West at least there is a huge pressure to decrease wages and remove burden of huge workforce on companies. There are still some earning well or even more than they used to but this is in my view minority. OC we can always change our skill-set and become all nail painters as so many morons here proposed lately but I warn morons proposing exactly that, not to try to too hard to have their nails polished and painted any day soon after I am replaced by whatever system (automatic or offshored) - they will be sorry to ever have nails in the first place.
I live in the Caribbean and buy engineering products from the USA and China. Exporting from the US is a pain. There are so many requirements implemented in the name of "Preventing Terrorism" and "keeping America Safe" that it is easier to buy from China. It seems the American Government is doing it's best to force everyone to buy from China instead of American manufacturers.
American companies do not know how to export. Ask any American company for a commercial invoice and they are lost. Customs requires one, so you would think they would figure it out. Try explaining you do not have a zip code.
Even though we have consolidation services, getting the required paperwork is more work than it is worth.
WIth Chinese companies, they will quote to deliver the product to your door, wherever you are.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
How long have we heard wise remarks about the supposed stupidness of other countries. How "free enterprise" would magically fix all and any problem. How one should only be loyal to money, never your own nation ?
Now, my dear anglosaxons, how does it feel to be a Nation Of Traitors ? How does it feel when New York finance are not patriots, but people who care only about their quick win ? What are the effects of widespread drug abuse ? What are the effects of all the nasty Hollywood movies ?
How does it feel to live under the erratic rule of egotists ?
Seems our Western selfish capitalist system will continue until there are only lawyers and patent trolls left. That'll be the final point of decline.
Some consolation in the expectancy of seeing said patent trolls going down in flames. May they suffer harshly.
Revenues in the original company have fallen by 50 percent, and the take-over company hides this fact through acquiring other companies and puts them under the original companies "umbrella" operations.
Name names please (even as an AC).
If companies (or rather, executives) can't be honest about what they're doing if they think it's right, then perhaps some shaming is needed to bring things to light.
Seriously don't even think about it. Shit salaries (unless you work in London, the downside of that being you have to go to London) and the dumbing-down of the phrase "engineer" in this country means that if you say you're an engineer the automatic assumption is you fix fridges or satellite TV for a living.
Well, the artilel is not as bad as it seems.
EE jobs are down, but S/W jobs are up.
Looking around here, that what most EE's are doing anyway.
The general trend is not so good though.
Development engineering follows manufacturing.
Research follows that.
Deciding what to make and how to sell it follows that
Management and finance follow
Management in corporate America is short sighted in the bargain priced offshore manufacturing.
Aside from ofshoring the customer's money,
the bargain includes offshoring management as well.
Even if the goal is to make money for the stockholders, the path will ultimately make another Kodak.
Too many tarrifs may have caused the last depression, too few may cause the next.
Somebody should do an economic model to show how this all works with nobody working.
those 35,000 lost jobs in America in 2013 turned into 70,000 jobs filled in China for one tenth the cost.
Such is the price of offshoring. Still a great idea?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I have an Electrical Engineering degree, and i write embedded software. Also, at my company, 4/5 of the other developers also have electrical engineering degrees. So, I think the line is blurred on that. Also, do FPGA developers count as software or electrical engineers?
not requiring becoming an EIT to graduate and eventually a PE to practice. Had they followed law and medicine it would be a lot harder to offshore work, and salaries would be higher due to fewer engineers. In addition, like law or medicine engineering schools would have to be accredited so there would be fewer new graduates which also would dive up salaries. Licensing is not about ensuring quality as much as limiting supply and erecting barriers to entry.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
To lose one may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose 35,000 looks like carelessness.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So much for STEM. Sure let's push STEM on our students so after expending all of the effort in school to get a degree, they can flip burgers? Why? Because no matter how qualified the graduates are, Asia pays 2/3 less. For a global economy to work, wages need to be standardized. That means raising up wages in poor countries or lowering them in wealthy countries. Big business, whose major shareholders are interested in their bottom line, will go for lower cost every time, thus lowering the standard of living in the US.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Electrical Engineers are different from Electronic Engineers no? The first ones deal with power plants, generators, building electricity requirements, the later deal with small devices, computers, etc.
and finishing it in the body is a bit annoying.
Please don't build your own computer and software. It could be that NSA cannot infiltrate your home-made computer. And that would be against the interests of New York and Jerusalem. And Riad.
Be a Good Citizen, expose your soft parts and then PRAY.
So, to take your hypothetical question even further . . . what happens when 20% or even 50% of the workforce is no longer needed to produce what we all need to survive or even thrive?
Compulsory military conscription.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I am an EE..
I moved into technical business development and government administration. The hours halved and the pay doubled. You do the math.
You hit a wall as an EE; the profession isn't well developed compared to others, and like many people, I was driven by a love for the work. Relative to the amount of effort I put in however, the return (and retirement) wasn't going to be there. This leads you to the natural exit path to management.
If you can hack EE, you can probably do anything else - law, medicine, accounting, finance - professions with stricter entrance controls, and force of law behind them.
I don't recommend people pursue engineering as a end profession anymore. You're better off doing something else until the environment changes, you can hack on things for fun, and I enjoy that a lot more now. I am not sure the profession is as respected as it once was - no, wait, who am I kidding - I am sure it's no longer respected.
I suspect this is the actual trend behind declining STEM enrollments. Smart people aren't stupid. Imagine that.
Oh pus, I usually dislike your choice of articles but thanks for bringing attention to something that matters.
we need more trade / tech schools / apprenticeship/ less classroom time.
4-year pure classroom universities are way to long for some jobs and they give lot's of skills gaps / are overload with theory that in come cases is to much info on areas that are really not needed to do the job / a lot of that info only really helps on some areas of Engineering / Programming.
But the thing is you don't need allmost of the Engineering / Programming done in that area no you need it in the other areas that are more hands on / lower level coding where the base OS does a lot of the very low level filesystem and other work.
Also some things like CS is not for IT / system admin work and can be overloaded with Programming skills where as a tech school setting has all of the work based on other parts of the IT areas that what system admin work is.
ATMs use USB to link parts in side it also remote desktop does not work over dial up / slow network links. Some ATM may be on satellite internet where the lag and small data caps will kill remote desktop as that main ui it may work for remote admin but not for day to day use.
Start by removing healthcare from jobs.
Start with makeing full time 32 hours a week
Get rid of the no overtime when you are on salary of put in a min level of say 100K+ COL to be able to not pay OT.
Some level of foreced to offer sick days.
We don't need to come to the day where someone is pulling 60-80+ hour weeks while there co workers get layed off and are not working.
education needs to be cheaper and quicker.
4 years pure classroom is to long and learning new skills should not have to be tied down to the college time table.
cell providers want fast and cheap tower climbers and that leads to subs doing unsafe work for low pay with a time table that leads to rushing jobs.
I've been an EE for over 30 years... based on the incredible number of company/recruiter requests for an interview over the past few years, it seems as if there are many more very high-end EE jobs than very experienced EEs. This might not mean that we aren't losing high-end jobs, but that we're losing high-end EEs at an even faster rate to retirement or management roles.
Wow. I am surprised by this news. Originally I wanted to be an EE, but I ended up liking software development better and chose that path. I am glad I did. Still, with the need for the electrical grid to be reworked and smart appliances and smart homes becoming a reality, you would think EEs would be in greater demand.
Proverbs 21:19
There IS NO STEM shortage. There IS NO shortage of qualified electrical engineers in the United States. There IS a shortage of electrical engineers willing to work for low wages.
I remember hearing how the Greeks debated even the existence of Rome; while Rome invaded them.
Today I see grinning show-offs supporting a program that is actually damaging the revenue generation to the U.S. government. Also, it is unignorable, the trashing of American educaiton programs. One has to ask, "Who benefits from this?" And that group of people are not Americans.
The IEEE has no power to pass legislation to prevent the offshoring of engineering jobs so the person to whom you're replying is not a troll.
There is no lobbying organization for technology workers as there is for many other fields such as law (ABA and the fact that many Congressmen are lawyers) and medicine (AMA).
...and increased the unemployment rate for electrical engineers from 3.4% in 2012 to 4.8% last year...
I know how to fix this. More H-1B foreign workers should be imported! That will get competition going again!
Requiring an EIT ot PE would become another expensive and obnoxious requirement put upon individual Americans entering into engineering, at a time in their lives whan they have few resources, all while providing no REAL benefit (other than another checkbox checked on a form). Big American employers importing foreign workers, on the other hand, would handle this the same as they handle all other such requirements (have people on-staff to process the paperwork and "assist" their selected people getting approved).
Allow me to illustrate how this works with an aerospace example (which I will admittedly over-simplify for this audience which does not need all the gory details) as follows:
The FAA has many requirements to certifying flight systems (everything from tires to airframes to avionics and engines). These requirements are "for our protection and safety". Being one of the smartest and best parts of the Federal govt (which is not saying much, but it is something), they long-ago understood that bureaucrats knew less about this stuff than the people actually designing, building, and flying planes so they came-up with something called a "Designated Engineering Representative" (D.E.R. or DER) who is a person with proper experience and training to examine a system and "sign-off" on it; once the DER signs-off on something, the FAA accepts that. If you are an individual or a small business wanting to build a new plane, you will will need to locate a DER and pay that person to come and examine what you are doing during the design and construction phases and approve it (probably lots of visits, examinations, and money... and there's not exactly a glut of DERs). In almost every way, this system is superior to a system of government inspectors who would be typical paper-pushing bureacrats with rapidly developing Napolean complexes and no familiarity with changes in technology. However this is another impediment to new upstart plane,engine,avionics,etc builders (who are generally resource starved) the big companies can easily figure out how to minimize (just as they use armies of on-staff accountants and lawyers to minimize their tax liabilities). Big aerospace firms, simply get some of their managers trained and certified as DERs, and then these in-house guys can sign-off on all the company stuff. Big, well-funded and established airframe, avionics and engine companies have their guys sign-off on their own stuff while anybody starting a new airframe, avionics or engine company is obstructed. The system "protects" us all by making sure no little plane builder in Wyoming makes a four-seat propeller-powered plane that will ever have a battery fire....
Government regulations/certifications are NEVER a hurdle to giant multi-national compaines... they are just another cost item in a spreadsheet and another few hours or days on a Gantt chart, but they are major hurdles and expenses for small upstarts, and big corps will happily support such costs and delays when the side-effect is the suppression of any potential new competitors arising from a garage somewhere with a "dangerous" idea and attracting an initial wave of funding....
10% decline in one year?
30,000 jobs in a nation of 300,000,000 ?
Sure it's not just noise?
What are the confidence intervals on this?
I took a 2 year sabbatical and went back to UW-Madison to learn Chinese. Nice to be able to do that at 45. :-)
What I found despressing is the graduating kids in the Mechanical Engineering told to "head to China" because the building boom will last over their for the next 20 years at least and that jobs in the USA were truly few and far between with almost no investment in bridges, building etc.
Which, is pretty clear to see as most of our cities are in ruin.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/19/Detroit-A-City-In-Ruin-And-A-Warning-For-America
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
What makes you think the human desire for more will ever cease? By the standards of 300-500 years ago, 99% of the modern world is thriving. So why is everyone working as hard as they are? Because humans want. And unless everyone becomes ascetic Buddhists, or advanced AI coupled with nanotech replicators removes virtually all resource and technical constraints, that will continue for a long time yet.
An interesting question, to be sure. Another interesting question: the sociological and economic effects of drastically-extended lifespans.
Since neither the parent nor TFA seem to comprehend the difference between Electronic Engineering and Electrical Engineering, I have no idea WTF the article is even trying to say.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Spare me, dude. The CS vs coder argument is completely separate. Naturally there is a lot of math in the course of EE degrees. There had goddamn well better be. I'm not making the comparison directly between a "maintenance tech" and an EE, and if you'd read what I wrote carefully, that should be clear. However, a technician/engineer, who is going to be properly installing, diagnosing, commissioning, and/or even repairing inverters, rectifiers, static switches, load banks, voltage regulators, etc absolutely needs to understand both the mathematics and the theory. These guys are not just monkey part changers. They're highly trained, and yes typically have an EE background. Moreover, that is simply 1 potential opportunity that I'm presenting as an example for my other friend. There are many other roles one could easily apply one's EE degree toward and do quite well (perhaps a commissioning agent).
You, apparently as an EE, should know this. It makes me think that while you may have an EE designation, you are not familiar with my side of the industry. Opportunities abound outside of your particular pasture, guy.
I absolutely understand the difference.
I think it is a combination of many things...off-shoring being one. But I have noticed that a lot of companies don't want to do hardware. They want to a standard reference design--not something unique. So you don't need as many engineers to make the same product.
Replied to this in the wrong spot. Was intended as a response to this comment
We need to educate more managers and artists in this country. Engineers we can always import, already trained.
My nephew graduated in June with an EE degree. With no immediate job offers he spent the summer helping refit the engines in an ocean going tug. He was tasked with installing the electronics and sensors needed for modern diesel engines. He was flown from Florida to Oklahoma to interview for a position with a pipe line company. They considered installing the sensors good job training.