<p>Need a laugh? Here's a HILARIOUS article from the Huffington Post:</p>
<p>7 Industries In Need Of Workers NOW: CareerBuilder </p>
<p>In 2008 and 2009, the Manpower Worker Shortage Survey named engineering jobs the hardest to fill. While the 2010 title has gone to Skilled Trade positions, the engineering sector is still in need of well-qualified workers.</p>
<p>Why there's a need: Like health care, the engineering industry is seeing many of its workers reach retirement age. Additionally, fewer college students are graduating with engineering degrees. Adding to the need for engineers is last year's economic stimulus package, which prompted an upswing in transportation and infrastructure projects that demand the expertise of skilled engineers. </p>
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<p>Fewer college graduates are going for engineering? NOT true. An engineering shortage? Umm, Vivek Wadhwa of Duke, as well as Harvard, the Urban Instutue, the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, and RAND all care to disagree. This article is just another mouth piece for the industry lobbyists who need to convince Americans there is a big bad engineering shortage to justfy increasing the cap on H1-B viasa. </p>
<p>What is there a shortage of? Journalists who researh facts!</p>
<p>do you care to link to either article or does this forum have a shortage of people willing to post links to articles that they are talking about?</p>
<p>from the article found by googling “7 Industries In Need Of Workers NOW: CareerBuilder”</p>
<p>In 2008 and 2009, the Manpower Worker Shortage Survey named engineering jobs the hardest to fill. While the 2010 title has gone to Skilled Trade positions, the engineering sector is still in need of well-qualified workers.</p>
<p>Why there’s a need: Like health care, the engineering industry is seeing many of its workers reach retirement age. Additionally, fewer college students are graduating with engineering degrees. Adding to the need for engineers is last year’s economic stimulus package, which prompted an upswing in transportation and infrastructure projects that demand the expertise of skilled engineers.</p>
<p>Why you should consider it: Depending on the concentration, average salaries for engineers can average well into the six-figures. While an engineering degree is required for most positions, those with a bachelor’s degree in math or science fields may also be considered for open positions.
–Brent Rasmussen, President, CareerBuilder North America</p>
<p>Homer give it a rest, the only alternative is a libarts degree that has much worse salary and job prospects or a science degree that will land you a lab tech job paying peanuts.</p>
<p>“Homer give it a rest, the only alternative is a libarts degree that has much worse salary and job prospects or a science degree that will land you a lab tech job paying peanuts.”</p>
<p>Oh really? What about healthcare? Finance? Learning a trade? College professor? Public service jobs (police, sanitation). You might be laughing that I just said sanitation is better than engineering, but with overtime they make $100k + and get a really good pension.</p>
<p>I don’t consider 12 years to become a doctor, well over 8 years to become a professor, or public services AT ALL to be an alternative to a 4 year degree.</p>
<p>Learning trades leaves you with a salary that tops out where engineering starts, not a reasonable alternative for manual labor. You can make a lot of money hanging out with meth’ed out manly men on an oil rig but that doesn’t mean its a reasonable alternative to engineering.</p>
<p>First, this is not true everywhere. NYC, one of the most expensive places on earth, is not representative of the other 99.9% of the world. If you think it is, then you have an amazingly narrow world view.</p>
<p>Second, just because a job involves making a lot of money does not make it a good job. For example, few people would argue that being a drug dealer is a good job, despite the fact that you can make tons of money.</p>
<p>“I don’t consider 12 years to become a doctor, well over 8 years to become a professor, or public services AT ALL to be an alternative to a 4 year degree.”</p>
<p>Since when are doctors the only one in healthcare? Nursing is a 2 year degree. So is respiratory theraphy. Pharmacy and theraphy is 6. </p>
<p>“You can make a lot of money hanging out with meth’ed out manly men on an oil rig but that doesn’t mean its a reasonable alternative to engineering.”</p>
<p>Umm, don’t some engineers work on oil rigs? Where do you think petro engineers work? In corner offices on Madison Avenue?</p>
<p>Petroleum engineers aren’t working 16 hour shifts daily for months on end doing manual labor.</p>
<p>Pharmacy is probably the only good effort vs return in health care but I avoided it because they could easily be replaced by vending machines(considering the computers they use now already check for all the interactions already) and places like Canada are bringing in vending machines in pharmacies now. Since all of the important interactions have been programmed into the computers they use now pharmacists are just pill counters and retail employees who have to deal with customers all day and get paid way too much money(seriously, $100k starting salary for what they do today is unnecessary)</p>
<p>Nurses make okay money but again they top out where engineers start and they usually hate their jobs.</p>
<p>Engineering remains the easiest way to make money while you’re still in your 20’s and get a chance to enjoy life before you’re old. Not to mention it is interesting and challenging, I’d much rather be working for a defense contractor on the latest military technologies then counting grandpa’s blood pressure meds or giving grandma a sponge bath in a hospital.</p>
<p>“Nurses make okay money but again they top out where engineers start and they usually hate their jobs.”</p>
<p>That is certainly not true. My mother is an RN and she makes far more than where engineers start. Also, there are different types of nurses. A CRNA can easily make $250,000.</p>
<p>Homer, a little personal perspective. I did my undergrad at a big engineering school, and was invited in my senior year to serve on an advisory board for the college. We were asked to address exactly two issues - how the college could increase alumni donorship (go figure), and how to increase both initial enrollment and degree completion numbers. We were given the enrollment numbers as well as the graduation rates, and both were on the decline, even as overall university enrollment was increasing… that is what I would call “Fewer college graduates are going for engineering”.</p>
<p>Oh, and my company in the last few years has signed onto or started several programs which have as their sole purpose increasing engineering enrollment and graduation rates - I have a hunch that they saw a shrinking of their employment pool before they invested millions in trying to increase it.</p>
<p>Homer, every payrate you ever list for healthcare seems to be for the most ridiculously inflated jobs in the most ridiculously inflated markets in the country. $250k for a CRNA is about double the high end of what I have seen. Conversely, my boss (an engineer) makes somewhere in the $250k range (based on his paygrade which I know).</p>
<p>For what it is worth, I have a friend who is an RN, graduated from the same school I did and did very well while she was there, lives in the same area working for a pretty prestigious hospital, and having been in the field for almost a decade longer she makes about $20k less than I do.</p>
<p>I have two friends whose daughters just graduated from nursing school and CANNOT find a job. There is a glut of nurses right now. Go figure! When these kids started school, nursing was THE field to go into to be guaranteed a job.</p>
<p>You HAVE to take the long view of careers. To look at what is happening this month or year is so short-sighted.</p>