Is Your Engineering Job Safe?

LOL, I stumbled on this thread. It's 2010 and it's actually gotten worse. I love engineering, to bad as an American my engineering degree will never be used. Let's face it, if the H-1B was about the "best and brightest" we would see the majority of visa holders coming from Japan or Germany, not low wage countries. The company that sponsors the visa has something extremely valuable to offer the would be immigrant a foot in the door. I know people who would work for free for that chance. Why would an American company pay more for local labor when they can import all the indentured servants they want and hold them captive(H-1B can't change employer) At this point engineering and tech work is less profitable than fast food. It's a race to the bottom, and we are winning.

"Advice to wannabe engineers, give it up - become a dentist, doctor, lawyer, winery owner"..Winery owner??? Now THAT'S a plan....

Some things can't be done very well by Asian's in Asia. They need some of us to sell their technical goods and services here in the USA. I left engineering in 1980 (my dream job doing what I loved) for a Sales Engineering job thanks to low cost Asian goods. I now work for the enemy because there is nothing left here in the USA that pays well. Sadly, my advice is to run from electronics and not look back. Since the 80's we have allowed the new generation of CEO's and Execs to give our knowledge away to people who work for nearly nothing and our children won't be able to bring it back.

I've been selling to hardware design and component engineers in the USA for over 15 yrs. now [working for 2 different US component makers] and find it fascinating that a high percentage of US born engineers continue to specify component parts made by Asian mfgr's. I've seen this sad state of affairs they're in brewing for years now. A lot of them are also driving Acura's and Kia's. You guys are a bunch of bright fellows...but until you stop this practice of choosing foreign products for your designs then there's not much hope of protecting your jobs.

Here is a little different twist on the subject. I have been an electronic/computer technician for 25 years and have been thinking of going back to school for and engineering degree..maybe chemical or electrical, but all this sounds very pessimistic. I have made decent money in the past, but have watched the market change (ie. everybody now thinks they can repair computers and what's left to fix?) and wages drop. What area would you suggest and what would be my chances of being hired at my age? While I like to make a good living, I do not have to make $100K either. Any comments would be appreciated.

Well done!

I am seeking jobs in electronics & communication sector. well i found that India is lacking in electronics but not in communication case. But MNCs coming to India and grapping opportunity of this market. according a channel survey Indian Engineers supply will short in next few years...so here good opportunity

We should start outsourcing government jobs. That should help our public employees understand the situation better. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Can you say "Welcome to Walmart?"

Despite embedded, RF & software skills, outa work good chunk of professional life. At 50, divorced with no house, no kids, gave up Canada, found a small biz US employer who will work me to death for below-average pay. No option. Gotta have bread b4 I have to give it up due to health. Plan to work, if I can find it, til I die. Just love electronics engineering but it zeros the rest of your life. Suffered mostly idiot penny-pinching management with very limited vision in big and small companies. Everyone wants $20 ooh-aah cell-phone/PDA/iPOD/DVD consumer technology that can be designed correctly in a month without EDA tools, test equipment or necessary resources. Yeah, right. Most foreign engineers I've met are very limited robots who can talk a storm, work long hours and enjoy "being competitive". Advice to wannabe engineers, give it up - become a dentist, doctor, lawyer, winery owner. (PS. Sorry to hear about PMC-Sierra in Ottawa).

Maybe it is just good old ageism. See the story on IBM ex-employees suing today in SiliconValley.com.

With respect to our immigrant past, and the thought that it is good to be recruiting and keeping the talent that comes to the USA I have called my representative to suggest that the H1B visa program be geared to encouraging 50% of the engineers working here on such a visa to become citizens. As I understand it, currently, H1B visa recipients are not eligible to receive citizenship biased on the time spent working as H1B. If I have to compete against H1B recipients I would like at least 50% of them to be interested in the long term welfare of the USA.

It's a Walmart world. I cannot believe the skills companies require and the low pay they offer. Why? Because somebody will take it. We have made our own beds with the MBA's turning the matresses. The MBA's have made the moves to liquidate talent here and send it over there while they are fat and happy. Engineering is not fully understood by the general public. To them it is like magic on fully automatic. Never before in time has the general public been exposed to real true high tech equipmenet and gadgets that that make their lives better and sales and marketing people richer and Engineers get little or nothing. I also agree about the "electrician" in another note here. I would never disrespect any professional or blue collar worker but the guy that drives a cement truck and dumps concrete to form your driveway is raking it in but the Engineer that designed the electronics in his truck is barely making ends meet.

Actually over 50 engineers (I'm over 60) make excellent fixit folks - now to find products that are DESIGNED to be fixed! Oh, woe....

I switched to contract Engr about 15 years ago, which at the time doubled my wages, triple with OT. Work was steady until sep 2001. Then it hit the fan. Even now with many newer skills, I am back to making what I was back then, only everything cost more and the companys have cut out all the OT pay and insureance is costing 2 to 3 $ per hr of your pay, plus the contracts are much shorter and further away. This one ends in 4 weeks, then I am going to try to start my own bus. FYI, I am only 40 yrs old.

The real problem with the exodus of jobs in this fashion is that when the work is outsourced (eg. to India) then there are communication problems (they may speak english but.....) and what you get is not what you really want. This results in project delays and extra cost involved in correcting the problems. Much better to leave the work where the experience is. The total cost is only marginally higher but it is quicker.

I am planning to seek a job in US. After reading the article, I am wondering whether I am right or not!! Because most of semiconductor manufacturing is out of US.

I am still waiting for the day when CEO jobs are outsourced. There is no reason why a Chinese or Indian can not perform as well if not better for shareholders, and for much less. Meanwhile, keep writing to your legislators, telling them to eliminate the H1B mess. BSEE, 1980.

I am over 50 with four kids; one in college and working and two more about to go to college. I have been in the semiconductor industy for 35 years and in 2003 was laid off. But here's the irony: the Friday before they held an all hands meeting and applauded the two patents that I was granted and the one publication in a prestigeous trade magazine. I came to work with pride and vigor on Monday and was promptly laid off. An arbitrary kneee jerk decision was made by one or two people without consideration or consultation as to my worth and contributions to the company over the past 8 years. I ALWAYS stayed current with all facets of my industry and got a job outside my field of expertise but in a job my employer knew I could contribute because I kept current in knowledge and my industry. That's the only way to survive. That's what I am doing now. I bust my hump because I need my job. And the irony is, I now work for less and still love my job and the industry. My advice: Stay current and educated, know your stuff, don't BS people and above all, do what ya gotta do.

This is a losing battle. What do you think why there are so many foreign experienced engineers in USA wants to go back to their own countries to have their own careers there? They can have their dreams come true in their home towns. USA, or Silicon Valley is no longer a place that can make engineers happy in the global competition. No wonder so many college students choose Marketing as their majors. We can not beat the trend of globalization, so we join them. I am one of them after 20 years working as an engineer in Silicon Valley. God bless America!

I'm an engineer in my late 50's working for an aerospace conglomerate with annual layoffs. I am a specialist with hard won skills but my employer rated me poorly against their touchy feely, popularity contest metrics. Do I work hard to increase my skills and productivity? Nah, I apply my limited energies to learning the investment game. You should add a column on career ideas for engineers exiting the game.

Yes, it's tough that jobs are being outsourced, but to blame it on a program-management mindset or cost-reduction is silly. The fact is: global competition is continually improving and jobs/careers that were once fully insulated from this are finding they won't stay that way. Would you prefer that your company simply go out of business? I don't have any easy answers other than, as someone else said: stay in touch with the changing market, your skill set, and your performance.

With only 10 percent of engineers in the U.S. under the age of 30, enrollment in engineering and related technology degree programs dropping, and the trend you cite of engineers over 50 being displaced, it appears the role of U.S.-based engineers may be diminishing. Is there a danger we'll become irrelevant, from a technology innovation standpoint?

I am 55 and there are more ways to make money in engineering than ever before. I have started a non-profit school for inventors in Denver, Colorado. See MadSciLab dot com Some of the greatest minds reside in the USA and some of these great minds came from elsewhere.

Become a builder or contractor. Everyone needs a place to live or things repaired.

Hogwash! Total and Blatant. As a Contract Engineer and President of a company that places contract engineers I know we have some of the best skills in the world in the US that are struggleing to stay employed. Corporate America continues to get congress to allow the import of thousands of foreign high tech professionals even when US citizens are standing in unemployment lines. Look at the H1B cap of 195,000, reduced back to the 65,000 level in Sept. 2003. It was met every year and even exceeded against legislation. Currently applications hit the cap before the H1B year starts (October is when the count starts and the applications have for the coming year have been hitting the cap months before the start). Congress continues to allow corporations to get around employment law, (FLSA, ADA, OSHA etc.) with the outsourcing of American jobs. For example "minimum wage" doesn't protect anything if jobs are going to India, China or wherever. If the minimum wage is pennies it's no wonder the high tech wage in foreign countries is cheaper than here. Even worse than the H1B program is the Resident Alien program. Foreign high tech professionals are allowed "permanent" status without ever any intent or desire of becoming a US citizen. Citizens of other countries have better job security with a Resident Alien card because they can move freely between the US and their home country. They have opportunities that are not even available to US citizens. If globalization were truely a move toward a global economy we would see world wide opportunities. The truth is that most of the oursourced jobs are not benefiting a global market. Even within state and federal government departments, there is a practice of using foreign operations to service US patrons. Computer customer service departments for US patrons are predominately staffed out of country. True globalization would be using global resources to service a global market. What we have is global resources for the US market.

The survival equation is simple: technology+time =death. The longer you stay in high tech world, the more obsolete you become. How can you expect a fifty year old brain to compete with a twenty something? The problem is not just about globalizatioin. It's the nature of the business. Who hires an engineer who repares cathode tube TV? For all the high tech workers out there, please make your millions before you reach forty. If your retirement fund has not reached seven figures yet, change your career immdiately. You can become a nurse, lawyer, entrepreneur, and others.

there is very little an older engineer can do to keep the job. you keep your skills current but so do younger engineers. there was a time when off-shore engineers did not have the skills to do what we could do here, in the states. they are learning and their governments have a defined policy of developing specialists to cover the entire process. is is only a matter of time when "older" engineers' problems will move down to the younger ones. for now, having unique knowledge and top notch abilities will keep you employed but in time there will be no unique niches left and the off shore skills will catch up. end of the line.

Ed, This is a timely article. One thing that is not clear in this trend is that over-50 managers of jobs that got shipped overseas are also going begging. I have many extremely successful friends who are having difficulty finding work. Fortunately start-ups tend to be "crazy" enough to hire wiley old guys now and then.

Hi The problem is that most of us whingers (i.e. realists) have tended to diversify over time, so that offering single specialist skills is now an up hill battle! If you have been self employed for many years it is even worse! Regards Dave Canterbury

We were sort of professionals but now we are skilled labor. Tell the truth. If you want to keep working it means moving and taking a lower pay. Or get a new profession. A real profession.

I am 53 years and experienced. I have a good work ethic but not as good as ten years ago. It is my experience that most "older" workers maintain a degree of entitlement.

Right on; keep your skills current and relevant.

One of the areas is productivity. The older American engineers have to figure out to deliver more in less time to stay competitive. In order to do that, they need to be more aggressive in using the right EDA tools. This is a weak area for older American engineers.

I came to this country as an immigrant to pursue my American dreams. Competitions are poping up offshore. I beat them by keeping myself update on areas that there are not many resources, like wireless. It's not easy, but I gotta do it. Anyhow, it's sad that I see my golden dreams of being in the U.S. and acheiving my dreams is moving offshore. Should I move again to where my dreams are? No, I want to achieve my dreams in the U.S.