<p>In 2007, 60% of America's aerospace engineers were over the age of 45, soon eligible for retirement. Over the next several years, the private space industry will [hopefully] be booming, creating new job opportunities and a high demand to fill them as current older engineers retire.</p>
<p>When I compare this to the petroleum industry, it seems to follow a similar path. The oil industry is obviously booming (have you checked gas prices lately?), and there's a high demand for young petroleum engineers to replace the older ones who will be retiring over the next few years. Salaries in this industry seem to have skyrocketed due to the desire for more engineers. [source</a>] </p>
<p>Do you think aerospace engineers of the future will face a similar fate? (will they receive terrific pay like many petroleum engineers are?)</p>
<p>I hope we can find some new kind of ernergy. Also, we don't have to have 7-seat planes like SUVs. The material for flying planes will be a lot lighter.</p>
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I really don't think you can compare petroleum engineering with aerospace.
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<p>True, but that's not exactly what I'm doing. Everything I've read says that not enough young engineers are entering the aerospace industry, especially at a time when a quarter of the nation's aerospace workers could be eligible for retirement. Aerospace companies have to do something to entice young engineers to join them instead of the Googles and Microsofts.</p>
<p>Petroleum companies are using higher wages to attract young engineers to their companies (there may be other reasons for these high salaries as well), so I don't see why aerospace companies couldn't use the same technique to lure young engineers to join them.</p>
<p>I'm not comparing the two industries -- I'm comparing the techniques used to gain more workers in fields that will have large numbers of employees retiring over the next several years and not enough people to replace them. I'm wondering if it's possible for aerospace workers to see large spikes in salaries in the near future, like petroleum engineers are seeing.</p>
<p>so basically, back to econ 101, supply and demand.</p>
<p>aerospace companies don't have to use any kind of techniques. if there indeed comes a time when supply diminishes and demand spikes within aerospace industry like you said, the wage HAS to increase (which means companies must "buy" employees at larger price)</p>
<p>we'll see. i'd rather shoot to become a manager and higher-up than waiting for my engineering wage to increase.</p>
<p>"I hope we can find some new kind of energy."</p>
<p>We should go wind + solar + nuclear and promote clean electricity and electric cars (and maybe flying electric cars for the Aerospace engineer). The sudden demand in electricity can be covered by expanding nuclear.</p>
<p>But of course... this would probably never happen during our lifetime.</p>
<p>I'm pretty bearish on Aviation Engineering for a couple of reasons.</p>
<p>1) Extreme energy constraints will limit air travel.
2) Other countries are jumping into the boat, therefore more engineers will be created. Japan & China are both showing a lot more interest in aviation.
3) Defense spending will likely trend down in the US due to budgetary constraints.</p>
<p>Now, I believe space engineering has a lot of options.</p>
<p>no i don't think the salaries are going to shoot up for aerospace engineers, there's plenty of engineers around. At the entry level, there's more demand than supply, but i don't think the same is true for the higher technical positions that require MS and PhD degrees. I can see the median salary go up 10k, or roughly 15%-20%, but engineers will never get the respect that other professionals such as lawyers, doctors get.</p>
<p>Right now there may be enough engineers, but in the future?</p>
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Ziskin estimates that half of Northrop Grumman's 122,000 workers will be eligible to retire in the next five to 10 years.</p>
<p>The trend is the same at Lockheed Martin Corp., of Bethesda, Md., which could lose up to half of its work force of 140,000 to retirement over the next decade.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how many people enter the aerospace industry each year, but do you think there will be enough several years down the line once seeing how many may be retiring over that time span? Since there are other companies in other industries that pay more right now, what will encourage future engineers to want to do aerospace? Higher pay could be an option.</p>