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And those who are saying there isn’t a labor shortage don’t have an agenda? Everybody has one.</p>
<p>“And those who are saying there isn’t a labor shortage don’t have an agenda?”</p>
<p>I don’t think Harvard, Duke, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, RAND, Rutgers, and the Urban Institute have an agenda.</p>
<p>So the argument here is that EET and EE are bad plays? How about with a masters in something else e.g. aerospace, nuclear, etc.?</p>
<p>
Well sure, but I have a brother who is a technician and I make about 3x what he does. For that matter, waitressing is also pretty stable, and doesn’t need a college degree. I was laid off twice as a technician - as an engineer I have had a very stable job.</p>
<p>Engineering shortages in the United States.We asked several
questions about company policies in hiring engineers
to work in the United States. First, we asked about job
acceptance rates, which are an indicator of the competition
a company faces in recruiting staff.Acceptance rates of
greater than 50% are generally considered good. Nearly
one-half of the respondents had acceptance rates of 60% or
higher. Twenty-one percent reported acceptance rates of
80 to 100%, and 26% of respondents reported 60 to 79%
acceptance rates. Eighty percent said acceptance rates had
stayed constant or increased over the past few years.</p>
<p>It is common in many industries to offer signing bonuses
to encourage potential employees to accept a job offer.We
found, however, that 88% of respondents to our survey
did not offer signing bonuses to potential engineering
employees or offered them to only a small percentage of their
new hires. Another measure of skill supply is the amount
of time it takes to fill a vacant position. Respondents to our
survey reported that they were able to fill 80% of engineering
jobs at their companies within four months. In
other words, we found no indication of a shortage of engineers
in the United States.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.soc.duke.edu/GlobalEngineering/pdfs/WhereEngineersAre.pdf[/url]”>http://www.soc.duke.edu/GlobalEngineering/pdfs/WhereEngineersAre.pdf</a></p>
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</p>
<p>Oh, then you were BORN to be an engineer!! :)</p>
<p>“Meanwhile, top foreign minds are gravitating to STEM. How do try reach the conclusion that all the American graduates are as qualified then? Nothing expressly supports that claim.”</p>
<p>Sure there is:</p>
<p>Thirty-seven percent said U.S. engineering
employees are more productive, whereas 24% said
U.S. and offshore engineering teams are equivalent in terms
of productivity. Thirty-eight percent said their U.S. engineering
employees produced higher-quality work, 1% said
their company’s offshore engineering employees produced
higher-quality work, and 40% said the groups were equal.</p>
<p>(From the Duke link above)</p>
<p>I do not believe academic institutions as a whole necessarily have an agenda, but I’d be surprised if individuals didn’t. If I were an academic, I’d feel pressure to get papers published. While I don’t think they would lie or make up stuff, I’m sure they try to write about topics that catches peoples eyes in order to get it accepted by journals and such.</p>
<p>From the Duke Link:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This report is not saying that there is no deficiency in the number of US engineers, but rather that non-US engineers are cheaper, something companies like.</p>
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</p>
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</p>
<p>This was an interesting article, but I do not think it says what you thought it says - it says that companies are sending engineering work overseas predominantly because it is cheaper to do so, but also highlights an existing and expected to increase shortage of American engineers.</p>
<p>Well, duh.</p>
<p>In search of cheaper labor, companies offshore engineering positions. Current engineers are forced to accept lower salaries if they wish to remain competitive. Prospective engineers observe the events taking place and opt for a more lucrative career thus creating engineering vacancies that “can not” be filled therefore forcing companies to send more positions overseas and that in turn restarts the cycle.</p>
<p>
To quote Ben Stein: ‘Anyone…anyone…’</p>
<p>These might pay well [Jobs</a> in Antarctica](<a href=“http://www.coolantarctica.com/Community/find_a_job_in_antarctica.htm]Jobs”>Find a job, work in Antarctica)</p>
<p>Vanagandr, niether are bad plays. You should do what you want to do. You should just be aware that an EET degree or any technology degree will not qualify you for most engineering jobs. If your goal is to ba an engineer, I would not advise an EET degree. You should search this topic because there are many threads with people asking this exact same question.</p>
<p>And Homer, I’m not sure where all the negativity towards engineering is coming from. I’m not sure what experiences you have but take it from someone with several engineering degrees and years of work experience, you are blowing the outsourcing thing out of proportion. Some of your points might be valid but the outsorcing argument can be made for practically any profession. Certainly business professions, accounting, ect. even law firms are outsourcing work. You can argue that medical professions can’t be outsourced but with the cost of medical school skyrocketing, health care reform, and rising malpractice insurance rates, becoming a doctor is becoming less appealing. I know doctors who do not recommend their children become doctors.</p>
<p>The fact is that engineers out earn practically all other undergraduate degree holders throughout their careers. Engineering starting salaries continue to go up every year and a large portion of engineers in the U.S. are reaching retirement age. I can tell you that there are plenty of opportunites in this career. To reiterate what others have said, engineering as a profession isn’t going anywhere.</p>
<p>ME 76-
Radiology jobs are being outsourced. Many are sent digitally to offshore docs. Also, companies are bringing in Drs trained overseas to fill staff “hospitalist” jobs or serve as locum tenens in many specialties, and are driving the salaries of these positions way, way down.</p>
<p>Solution:</p>
<p>Don’t major in anything. Become a professional bum.</p>
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</p>
<p>I hear there are foreigners moving in and taking street corners and alleyways from Americans too…</p>
<p>lol.</p>
<p>They seem to congregate around the day labor sites too…</p>
<p>Of course companies outsource jobs because wages overseas are cheaper. I do not deny that. Would you become an engineer to make $12,000 a year? Well, thousands of people in India would:</p>
<p>“Each year, India graduates 220,000 software and computer science engineers. Bangalore alone produces 25,000–almost as many as the entire U.S. The average wage is $12,000, with a PhD commanding up to $30,000 a year. That’s about one-fifth the price in the U.S. Cisco, SAP, and other companies that have shifted research work to India report savings of up to 60%.”</p>
<p>[BW</a> Online | November 11, 2002 | Calling Bangalore](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>“For example, a computer chip designer with a master’s degree in electrical engineering and five years’ experience often earns $12,000 a year in India compared to $85,000 a year in the United States”</p>
<p>[Globalization</a> Good or Bad ? Part 1|Sierra Express Media](<a href=“http://www.sierraexpressmedia.com/archives/12857]Globalization”>http://www.sierraexpressmedia.com/archives/12857)</p>
<p>So do you just have a repository of marginally useful articles or do you spend this kind of time actually doing all this web surfing just to try to make a point that clearly no or here is going to agree with?</p>
<p>Homer is raising some cogent arguments. I need to put myself in a position to compliment, rather than clash with the underlying forces of the global labour market, and denying what is happening is not an effective strategy.</p>