<p>Electronics</a> Engineers, Except Computer</p>
<p>Employment=~140,000 Mean Annual Wage=~$88,000
Is this true?</p>
<p>I think a better question to ask is “Do you believe in the BLS?”</p>
<p>Is there a reason to doubt it?</p>
<p>^ Are there any comparable reports that come to a different conclusion?</p>
<p>I’ve wondered about the quality of BLS data before, but generally they are within ~$10,000 dollars a year for most salary estimates (my own opinion).</p>
<p>Ahh…sorry guys I was being sarcastic. </p>
<p>Another instance where internet sarcasm fails. <em>facepalm</em></p>
<p>Mean annual wage means nothing; at least without knowing years of experience too.</p>
<p>If Bill Gates walks into a homeless shelter with 99 “patrons”; the mean personal wealth of all 100 in the place suddenly becomes $100M. I don’t think so…</p>
<p>"Mean annual wage means nothing; at least without knowing years of experience too.
If Bill Gates walks into a homeless shelter with 99 “patrons”; the mean personal wealth of all 100 in the place suddenly becomes $100M. I don’t think so… "
- Well, the BLS also deals in medians and percentiles. That’s not a horrible way to go.</p>
<p>Well I never really thought about the money. However, I would expect engineers to make at least 60-70K otherwise one would just be wasting their life on ridiculously difficult classes. </p>
<p>Even Pharmacist makes 100K without basically doing anything. An high school teacher makes 50K easily too so it makes no sense for engineers to struggle with 50K.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? 60k is a starting salary for an engineer with a BS. Mid career it should be around 100k.</p>
<p>I think the BLS actually underestimates salaries from what I’ve seen. One guess as to why this may be is that there are people out there who refer to themselves as engineers even though they do not have an engineering degree (I know several). I’m not sure if the BLS actually checks the peoples credential that they survey but this might skew the salary data. This is just a guess. Does anyone else think that the BLS underestimates salaries or is it just me?</p>
<p>With being a pharmacist, I think the reason they are paid 100K is that their profession is one that is required by society, but not one that has much room for vertical mobility. So in essence, they’re paying you off for the lack of (major) promotions and such.</p>
<p>
I agree 100%. I just attributed this to me living in California, or simply knowing people that only came from top schools.</p>
<p>As sakky’s noted quite a few times engineering schools go far below what’s generally mentioned on this website.</p>
<p>
Honestly, I’d prefer making 80k/year to 100k/year that a pharmacist makes. I like working projects (sometimes 4-5 at a time) and seeing new stuff every day.</p>
<p>I don’t know if BLS underestimates. A lot of it depends on where you’re living. Sure, there’s a lot of engineers in higher cost of living areas, but I know my friend that graduated in undergrad and went to work for a steel refinery in Alabama is making less than $60k, although her standard of living is certainly higher than my friends that went to Boston on $63k.</p>
<p>Heck, my mom’s been an engineer for her entire career, minus the handful of years she left to raise my brother and myself, but she was still making less money than most of my friends fresh out of college. That’s what happens when you work for smaller local companies for location and convenience.</p>
<p>I can’t believe that somenone with a true engineering position and years of experience would be making less than 60k, regardless of the location. 60k is more or less the standard for a fresh out BS holder in a lot of areas. I’m not talking about just west coast or east coast but througout the country. I think a full time engineering salary of under 60k with years of experience would put you in the 0.5th percentile.</p>
<p>If you look at how the BLS collects data, any position that has a title even remotely related to engineering is added in. So an hourly, control system technician often gets added in (and not at his true salary, but at his 40 hour minimum salary).</p>
<p>I agree G.P. Burdell. This goes back to the argument about who is and who isn’t an engineer. I think the title engineer is used way to loosley. It seems anyone who works in the technology sector thinks they are an engineer. You would think that the BLS would check credentials to seperate the true engineering jobs from the technician jobs.</p>
<p>The way I understand it, the BLS requests data from companies regarding what they pay someone who’s job meets a certain description. They don’t have the resources or access to data to manually check the information, so they’re at the mercy of the HR department’s interpretation of the description. </p>
<p>Consider the the number of jobs that would qualify under this description that I pulled from Wikipedia: “[One that] work[s] to develop economical and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics and scientific knowledge, while considering technical constraints.” Per the BLS SOP, they might simply add “this job usually requires a bachelor’s degree.”</p>
<p>I guess industrial engineering is on the fringe of engineering, but it’s certainly still more than just a technician (she’s also certified or whatever it is for six sigma and lean engineering/manufacturing).</p>
<p>I figure a lot of her low salary is due to her having been there for ten years without any raises above cost of living, in addition to the company continually atrophying as it gets acquired by other companies only to be resold at a loss to someone else. The previous local company she worked for went under, and since she was one of the last people to jump ship she didn’t have much opportunity for job hunting. She’s also really critical of herself and completely undervalues her skills, so I’m sure she didn’t negotiate her salary at all and just took whatever they offered her.</p>
<p>Most of the people here on CC are highly motivated, at good schools, and tend to have friends in similar positions. It’s hard to remember that for all of your friends going to “good” engineering companies and making $60k a year, there’s at least one other going to a mediocre one with fewer benefits, less opportunity for raises, and not as good of an outlook on changing companies in the future.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re lucky I can’t slap you for that comment ;)</p>
<p>How much you’re paid as an industrial engineer depends on whether or not you actually do engineering work. If you work in ergonomics, you won’t get paid much. If you work in forecasting or supply chain coordination, you get paid more.</p>