What's happening in the electronics supply chain that will change the way business is done? News Editor Suzanne Deffree looks at environmental regulations, RFID, inventory levels, globalization, distribution, and a host of other issues that influence the electronics supply chain.
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Thursday, April 26, 2007
Why are we celebrating 4 percent job growth?
Apr 26 2007 10:46AM | Permalink |Comments (8) |
Tech job growth seems to be returning to the United States, and it’s big news because the last time the industry heard the words “job growth” muttered was back around 2000. But at 4 percent growth, it’s not quite a boom, more of a fizzle.
Don’t get me wrong. Four percent is 4 percent, in this case some 150,000 jobs. Job growth is good. But offshoring continues and that’s one of the real culprits when examining the high-tech employment situation here in the United States.
There is a global demand for employees skilled in engineering, programming and other proficiencies that demand higher-level technology knowledge, yet as a country we turn out an embarrassingly low number of tech grads, especially when our affluence as a nation is considered.
Why are we celebrating a 4 percent growth in jobs and not an 8 percent, 12 percent or 15 percent growth? In part, because we can’t fill the seats with lower salaried employees, i.e. new grads, and companies go overseas. Besides the United States lack of qualified recent grads, we keep our high-tech visa system so tight that the application inbox fills within two days. Adding to that, our system seems to dump any engineer over the age of 50 – and that’s like choosing a wine cooler over a bottle of fine wine. To summarize, we have experienced employees who can add true value to the U.S., but can't find jobs; a lack of interest and ability coming from the next-generation; and an inability to import needed workers.
Obviously this is a very complex issue and one mere blog post won’t solve it, but I have to ask: How many different elements can we as a nation force against ourselves before we lose our last bit of competitiveness?
Reader Comments
at 4/26/2007 12:52:40 PM, Ron Bauerle said:
www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/lose.html
at 4/26/2007 3:07:21 PM, mo2 said:
my ps was that despite numerous recommendations (even from my sister), I'm still holding out, and refuse to dye my hair.
at 4/26/2007 3:32:20 PM, tm said:
You answered your own questions as to why the younger generation won't go into engineering: companies won't hire older engineers even though they're well qualified. Why would any kid want to go into a field that he sees his dad/mom being thrown out of like yesterday's garbage?
at 4/26/2007 3:35:11 PM, James Duran said:
The systems we have today in the US, the Educational System, the legislative and political systems, etc., ; were designed by some old white land barons in the 17 and 1800's. We no longer live in that time frame and instead our legislative system has degenerated into what laws can we pass that are least offensive to the most people. This is where we are and where we will remain, losing economic position to the developing world until we change our ways of doing things and change our consciousness about who we are and what it's going to take to get things done. Time for new leadersh
at 4/27/2007 7:18:31 AM, Suzanne Deffree said:
Thanks to Ron. Typo fixed.
at 4/27/2007 10:21:33 PM, Mid career EE said:
Oh yes, kids should work their tails off to get an EE degree, go to work for a heartless corporation for a meager salary, then face layoffs after 10 to 15 years when they have earned 1 too many raises.
HP is jettisoning as many 40+ y/o engineers as it can right now through early retirement incentives so it can replace them with new grads and Asian coolies.
I steered my nephew away from engineering. He picked Landscape Architecture instead. Smart boy!
at 5/23/2007 11:15:05 PM, EEConsultant said:
I don't get it. Engineers make the same money as a Subway sandwich owner, who probably has a AA from a local community college if at all. Engineers consistently undersell themselves by playing "Highlander" with one another. People who control and pay Engineers are business men who treat Engineers as a "resource" no different than a 2.4 GHz scope. I think Engineers should minor in business to understand how the business man "thinks". The smartest Engineer I knew was one who after his first job, productized his experience and sold to potential employers repeatedly.
at 7/13/2007 6:23:09 AM, EE Consultant 2 said:
These comments are right on. This is a self-fulfilling prophesy - we have a business environment that encourages companies to shed engineers when they get to a certain experience/salary level, so young people are attracted to other careers, then we end up either importing H-1B workers (at lower wages of course) or offshoring the work.
As a result we are losing our leadership position in electronics that we once had.
I don''t however know what is the solution to this, short of incentives to encourage more engineering grads, and laws to protect older workers - I do think that opening the floodgates to more H-1B visas is not a good thing.
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