<p>Compared to all the other engineering disciplines, is EE/CE a good choice in terms of availability of jobs? It seems like most areas you'll be able to find work as an EE/CE whereas you'd be hard pressed to find a chemE job in New York or a PetrolE job in an area that doesn't service the oil industry. According to the BLS, EE/CE is the largest sector of engineering compared to all the other disciplines... </p>
<p>If the above is true, why do I hear so many people saying that EE/CE jobs are experiencing the most outsourcing? Everywhere I go I hear everyone say "MAN, don't major in EE, you won't be able to find a job!!!" -- Virtually every EE/CE I know is employed and working on cool stuff. I just don't understand the hysteria.</p>
<p>So someone please tell me, is EE/CE a good degree to spend 4-5 years on ? Will the degree be worth it in the long run or will I be working at the mall like most of the liberal arts majors? [ I don't thikn I'll be working at the mall, but I'll probably have to do IT again and I HATE being an admin -- boring ].</p>
<p>The portability of your EE/CE degree (and most importantly your skills) is also one of the main drivers for the global offshoring trend. Internet has made it possible for many EE/CE tasks be digitalized and globally distributed, particularly, to engineers that provide the best overall value. </p>
<p>So what does that mean for newly minted EE/CE/IT graduates? Be prepare to differentiate yourself in a global marketplace, be flexible and take full advantage of your locality.</p>
<p>the majority of EE/CSE jobs in the US have alot to do security, sure cheap card counting games and such will come from over seas, but the real big things like aircrafts from Boeing or weapons from Lockheed, all have alot to do with security and well they cant be outsourced.</p>
<p>I have a feeling this is old news... I know 2 people who graduated with EE/CE degrees about 5 years ago that couldn't find a job and ended up going into the civil engineering field. Haven't heard much about that happening lately.</p>
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Compared to all the other engineering disciplines, is EE/CE a good choice in terms of availability of jobs? It seems like most areas you'll be able to find work as an EE/CE whereas you'd be hard pressed to find a chemE job in New York or a PetrolE job in an area that doesn't service the oil industry. According to the BLS, EE/CE is the largest sector of engineering compared to all the other disciplines...
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The portability of your EE/CE degree (and most importantly your skills) is also one of the main drivers for the global offshoring trend. Internet has made it possible for many EE/CE tasks be digitalized and globally distributed, particularly, to engineers that provide the best overall value.
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<p>Exactly right, and that's the double-edged sword of portability. If a job is portable anywhere within the country, then the job is also probably portable across national borders. You want portability, but not * too much * portability. </p>
<p>Let's take PetE or ChemE. People complain that these jobs are not portable. I agree. But that's actually one of their main strengths. Let's face it. You can't move an oilfield. If the oilfield is in your country, i.e. in Texas or Alaska, you have to have onsite petroleum engineers to produce and develop it. That means that, unless we're talking about a situation where a company will fly in low-paid foreigners to service the field, and then fly them back (a rather expensive proposition when you consider that the company has to pay for housing and travel for these guys, not to mention visa issues), you have to have Americans working those fields.</p>
<p>Similarly, take the chemical industry, including oil refineries and other bulk petrochemical processing plants. While these plants can, in theory, be outsourced (by having those chemicals processed in another country), the fact is, transportation costs for moving bulk chemicals is such that it is almost always more economical to produce these chemicals close to their point of usage. Furthermore, these are all highly capital-intensive industries such that labor costs represent only a tiny fraction of the total cost of production such that trying to save that money isn't going to help you very much. The labor costs of an oil refinery are dwarfed, probably by a factor of 100 or even a 1000, by the refinery's general operating costs. Hence, many chemical engineering jobs are highly resistant to outsourcing. People can talk about building toy and textile factories in China for export to the US market, but nobody is seriously talking about building oil refineries for export of gasoline to the US market (the Chinese oil refineries being built are all being assigned to service China's domestic demand).</p>