Long-term prospects for demand in engineering fields?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>And this much tells me how little you actually know about mechanical engineers. Besides, if you were that good at forecasting the future of the economy, you would likely be employed doing just that.</p>

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<p>That is an absolutely fair and valid point. That is likely why the job growth predictions have been hurt over the medium-term by the recession. However, in the long-term, that is a negligible effect. Eventually they will all still retire or die.</p>

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<p>Again, jobs getting offshored is not nearly as large a problem as you claim it is.</p>

<p>You can’t discontinue too many jobs without sacrificing quality of product, so this usually tends to balance out over time. Companies will cut back, then realize they are spread to thin and expand again. Assuming we do eventually come out of this recession, that won’t likely be a significant factor. The same concept goes for consolidation of jobs. You can only combine so many jobs into one before the workforce becomes unable to handle the newly complicated jobs. For example, you can’t really have a guy designing both compressor blisks and combustion chambers for jet engines. The two require different types of expertise and the workload would be too much to the point where, once again, quality of product is affect.</p>

<p>The jobs that are more likely to get hit by consolidation are manufacturing jobs. The more automated things get, the more the need for skilled workers shrinks. However, that doesn’t really affect engineers, because while they don’t have to supervise the assembly line anymore, they do have to maintain the robots who replaced the workers.</p>

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<p>“You can’t discontinue too many jobs without sacrificing quality of product,”</p>

<p>True, but that does not mean that jobs are not being shed. </p>

<p>[The</a> 10 Highest-Paid CEOs Who Laid Off The Most Workers: Institute For Policy Studies (PHOTOS)](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>The 10 Highest-Paid CEOs Who Laid Off The Most Workers: Institute For Policy Studies (PHOTOS) | HuffPost Impact)</p>

<p>Notice anything from the list above? I did. Most of the companies on it employ mainly skilled workers, like ENGINEERS. It was not full of companies that employ low skilled workers like fast food. What does it say about the future of engineering when tech companies that usually employ them are the main ones laying peopel off?</p>

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<p>All it says is that despite the recession, people still need to eat, so McDonald’s and Outback and Kroger are all doing fine. What they don’t need is new cars, new cell phones, new jet engines or any of those sorts of non-necessary products. Basically, companies that hire engineers often do get hit hard, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad profession or that it is doomed to have no jobs forever.</p>

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<p>@ ken,</p>

<p>Thanks. </p>

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