<p>NeoDymium, you make some very good points. Age discrimination is probably even more frustrating than the frequent lay offs in the field of engineering. </p>
<p>I have read some of your posts about engineering, and you seem both experienced and little bit … disappointed? Were/are you an engineer? You seem have so much wisdom that few are able/brave enough to share online about the engineering profession.</p>
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<p>Why are demand and salaries for CS majors so much higher than everything else. Is CS really just an inherently more productive field? </p>
<p>I have to think the CS boom of the past 3 years has to be part of some sort of “mini-bubble.” I don’t think the starting salary growth for CS (I don’t know nationally, but since 2010 the average has gone from around 60K to 85K for Bachelors in CS from Michigan) can continue. I’m not well versed enough to point out what’s going on or have any real insight on it, but it’s got to be there.</p>
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<p>Usually “fired” refers to dismissal based on some undesirable-to-the-company aspect of the employee (as in your example, or poor work quality), while “laid off” refers to dismissal based on factors not specific to the employee (e.g. closure of the site or company losing money or your acquisition-related examples).</p>
<p>However, marginal performers have a tendency to be included in layoffs, unless they are well protected politically, since layoffs are a convenient way of dismissing them without the hassles of dismissing them on an individual basis.</p>
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The average starting salary for CS majors in NACE’s survey by year is below. They do the survey several times per year, with minor variations in results at different times within the same year. When multiple data is available for the same year, I took the median. </p>
<p>2006 – $51k
2007 – $53k
2008 – $57k
2009 – $60k
2010 – $59k
2011 – $58k
2012 – $59k
2013 – $60k</p>
<p>These results do not suggest an unmaintainable rate of increase in salary over the past few years. If anything average starting salary has been almost stagnant over the past few years, which may partially relate to a low inflation rate. Note that specific colleges may have different situations than the national average, often relating to different locations. For example, Stanford has a starting salary of ~$100k for CS majors. Its location in Silicon Valley contributes to the high salary.</p>
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Tech majors tend to have higher starting salaries than the national average. It’s been that way for decades. There are numerous reasons, including taking jobs that require a specific skill set, and that skill set being valued in the market via supply and demand.</p>
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No, it mostly the simple fact that material and tool costs are extremely low compared to other fields - computers and software (which every engineering discipline needs) and not much else. This means that the investment costs for companies and for individual projects are extremely low, which attracts investment (driving competition for talent) and reduces the number of things management can throw money at to, well, one thing - the people.</p>
<p>I lived next door to a programmer. With a PC in his house, he had everything he really needed to start his own business and produce a product in volume. As an electrical engineer, I need a ton of tools and materials just to make a prototype, and much more to create an inventory. He could strike out at any time. I could most definitely not.</p>
<p>“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, biomedical engineers had an unemployment rate of 0.4% in 2012, which is one of the lowest unemployment rates of any careers with a statistically significant sample size. Fitting with the low unemployment rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 62% growth rate in this field in the next 10 years, which is one of the largest growth rates of any career with a statistically significant sample size. I don’t think biomedical engineers as a whole are struggling to find work, including at the undergraduate level.”</p>
<p>Perhaps this is true at the graduate level. Those who are employed at BME probably got their undergrads in MechE and then did grad school for BME. Also , percentages are misleading. There could be, for example, 5 BMEs last year in the nation, and the demand has grown to need 3 more BMEs. Demand may be growing a very fast percentage, but demand is still really low! I’ve read so many threads where BMEs are unemployed because they don’t have the foundations of engineering. Look at any curriculum for BME at any college, and you will see that this is true. BMEs basically take lower division engineering courses and then many biology classes. In doing so, they become jacks of all trades and masters of none. </p>
<p>By the way, Thank you for sharing your experiences.</p>
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A search on Monster shows 88% of the biomedical engineer jobs that list an education level require a Bachelor’s or less.
The BLS page for biomedical engineers is at [Biomedical</a> Engineers](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172031.htm]Biomedical”>Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers) . They estimated a 5-figure number of BMEs. They also list which states and metropolitan areas have the most employment in this field. Yes, it is smaller than most engineering fields. Their BME employment estimate is 60% of their estimate for chemical engineers, and 11% of their estimate for electrical engineers.</p>
<p>Interestingly, biomedical engineering graduates do not seem to do that consistently well in the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/16559971-post69.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/16559971-post69.html</a> compared to most other engineering majors.</p>
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There is an important question you are not asking: what does the BLS define as a biomedical engineer, and how does this definition relate to someone who majors in biomedical engineering?</p>
<p>^noimagination, very good point. </p>
<p>And what does the BLS define as unemployment? A truck driver who holds a BME degree is not unemployed. Engineers by nature are hard workers. So they would be more likely than other majors to seek work outside the field when they can’t find engineering jobs.</p>
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Many job titles are grouped into the “biomedical engineers” employment data, not just those having the exact job title. A list of job titles to profession groupings is at [Alphabetical</a> List of SOC Occupations](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/soc/2010/soc_alph.htm]Alphabetical”>http://www.bls.gov/soc/2010/soc_alph.htm) . For example, the job title “Bio-Mechanical Engineers” has code 27-2031, which corresponds to the profession “Biomedical Engineers.” Several other job titles also are grouped into this biomedical engineers profession. Sure some biomedical engineering majors go into unrelated fields, but the original post talked about hiring “biomedical engineers”, making it less relevant. For example, a good portion of BME majors apply to med school, so many BME majors end up working as doctors. Sometimes they go to grad school in a different engineering field. There are also BMEs who switch to other fields of engineering/CS. These all are not included.</p>
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Note that the unemployment rate varies significantly among different engineering fields. It’s not all engineering fields had one of the lowest unemployment rates of all listed professions – just biomedical and petroleum. 2012 BLS unemployment rates for other engineering fields are below:</p>
<p>Biomedical – 0.4%
Petroleum – 0.6%
Nuclear – 1.7%
Chemical – 2.7%
Environmental – 2.7%
Industrial – 2.7%
Mechanical – 3.1%
Civil – 3.4%
Electrical/Electronic – 3.4%
Aerospace – 3.7%
Materials – 4.4%
Marine – 8.2%
Mining/Geological – 18.5%</p>
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See [How</a> the Government Measures Unemployment](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm]How”>How the Government Measures Unemployment : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)</p>
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<p>True, but the truck driver might be considered underemployed, especially if he or she is making less money.</p>
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<p>There is a potential opportunity cost involved in seeking work outside of a field where there is fierce competition. There are numerous accounts of people who have been passed over for jobs, despite sterling (academic and/or professional) credentials, because they had a gap in employment that those who make hiring decisions thought made them a hiring risk.</p>
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Not sure I would make that statement. I mean, engineering (in college, at least) requires a bit more work than most other majors, but I have worked with plenty of engineers who were content to explore the true meaning of the phrase “bare minimum”. My wife is an archaeologist, and she is a much harder worker than I am.</p>
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I’ve known some engineers who I’d describe as closer to Wally from Dilbert than a hard worker. Some engineering positions have flexible working hours, with loose individual goals/schedules, permitting many to get by while only spending only a small portion of their time doing effective work. For example, the friend I mentioned earlier in the thread previously told me he spends ~90% of his day at work surfing the Internet. This method has apparently been successful for him, as he’s been promoted multiple times. At the other extreme, there are also engineers who regularly work weekends and 80+ hour weeks.</p>
<p>Data10, i think your friend is either a). extremely gifted in engineering and can complete his work in 10% of the time it takes most engineers or b). has great soft skills and connection with management.</p>
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<p>That is true. Employers, especially those in high tech, see gaps in employment as red flags. However, what is one to do when he can’t find work in engineering and there are bills to be paid and stomach(es) to be fed?</p>
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These boards tend to paint a far too optimistic picture of engineering. I think it’s only fair to let people know about the dark side of the profession (since they do come here for advice), so my posts tend to be a little more pessimistic than most.</p>
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In general I don’t like the fact that you’re using only the BLS data to say that the profession is doing well, but I think that these numbers really can’t be accurate. Half of these are below the “natural unemployment” (people between jobs) rate of 3-4% (probably closer to 4%; it tends to increase over time). On top of that, we are on the tail end of a recession, so the numbers shouldn’t be that close to that 3-4%. The unemployment rate really doesn’t fall below that 3-4% in normal circumstances (last time it was common was in WWII), so I wouldn’t trust those numbers simply because they don’t make sense according to economics. I think there is a bias in the BLS numbers that significantly skews their results.</p>
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“Employment gap = hard to return” is a pretty common trend in most highly competitive situations - academia and employment in large population centers, for example. This would suggest that engineering has a supply > demand of workers as well.</p>
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The BLS unemployment rate is the standard used by the vast majority of external references about unemployment in the United States. It is not ideal for a variety of reasons, but it is the standard. The overall BLS unemployment rate for 2012 was 7.8%. Most professions within the engineering fields were well below the overall average unemployment rate, as one would expect. While various other professions were well above the overall average (for example, actors were at 28.5%). Below 3-4% unemployment is by no means unreasonable for specific professions. Some states are in that range across all professions. The overall average unemployment across all professions (and all states) in the US was near 4% prior to the subprime mortgage crisis, with a large portion of specific professions under 3-4%. There have been times when the overall unemployment rate in the US was under 3%.</p>
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You may have a different opinion after you graduate and start working a full time job, within an office setting. In the Forbes survey, 11% of employees said they spend 6 or more hours per day surfing non-work related websites on the Internet. 1/3 of respondents said 2+ hours. In some engineering positions, engineers have a large amount of free reign about what they choose to do with their time, opening the door to this type of waste. For example, at my current position, there is nobody checking in on me regularly or giving me a list of weekly assignments, like one gets with problem sets for school/college. Instead a large number of engineers are working together towards a complex project that will take a time measured in years to complete. I generally choose what aspect of the overall project goals I’d like to work on, in a particular day, instead of getting assignments. I do talk about what I’ve been working on briefly in a weekly meeting, but there is nobody checking on my individual progress. Instead people are focused on the overall schedule of the project, and as long as you are not involved in a slow point in that overall schedule, there will be little concern about your individual progress. I realize that there are many other types of engineering positions for which these comments do not apply.</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago I asked the same question and received the same answer…CS majors will find work. Does anybody know if there is a demand for Operations Research engineers? I noticed some very respectable programs are not ABET accredited. I also would appreciate it if someone could tell me if going to a better school would help with employment opportunities in that field? This major requires taking some programming classes but not enough to make someone proficient at programming.</p>