Good news for graduating Engineers?

[TheFuteballer]

In a recent IEEE magazine I found the following editorial which I thought to be pretty interesting:

Good news, graduating students of the Class of 2008: There is a talent war going on. The National Science Foundation estimates that 25% of the U.S. Engineering and sciences workforce is older than 50 and quickly nearing retirement. While medical advances will allow many of the those workers to continue working beyond their nominal retirement age, the sheer number of retirees combined with declining enrollments in science and engineering programs at universities worldwide leaves those of us in the Net generation (1981-2000) with an opportunity to fill the gap.

Found that quite interesting and let's hope it turns for the better for all of us :lol:

[pitz]

Well hopefully salaries for new grads will start to keep up with inflation then if there is lots of demand. $50-$60k was pretty average in 2001 as a starting ECE salary, and the price of oil/gold/etc. has only, what, quadrupled since then?

Personally, I think a bigger trend driving the future demand for engineers will be the need of business and industry worldwide to become much more energy efficient. And engineers will be at the forefront of those efforts.

[Sylvestre]

While those stats are true, for the time being, in Ontario, there's a huge, huge oversupply of people with engineering degrees (both foreign and domestic). What's lacking is experienced people and unfortunately companies aren't going out of their way to risk training inexperienced workers.

[TheFuteballer]

Well hopefully salaries for new grads will start to keep up with inflation then if there is lots of demand. $50-$60k was pretty average in 2001 as a starting ECE salary, and the price of oil/gold/etc. has only, what, quadrupled since then?

Personally, I think a bigger trend driving the future demand for engineers will be the need of business and industry worldwide to become much more energy efficient. And engineers will be at the forefront of those efforts.

Actually pitz you should look at that issue if you can.. I'll see if I can scan the pages for another article. The IEEE USA did a survey of 1400 IEEE members and their salary and I was exceptionally surprised at the high salaries in the US.

For example here are some numbers based on primary income by primary job function:

(In the upper quartile the average salaries are:)

Engineering Management: $175,000 US (people in the Highest Dectile are getting paid $240,000 US )
Engineering Marketing: $160,000 US (again Highest Dectile are at $200,000 US)
Consulting: $137,000 US
Programming / Software Engineering: $120,000 US (lower quartile is getting almost $80,000 US which is still pretty good for software positions IMO)


It seemed of all the people in the survey the results were as follows:

Lower Quartile: $85,000 US
Median: $108,000 US
Upper Quartile: $136,000 US
Highest Dectile: $168,490 US

If there IS to be more demand in the next 10 years or so, I think these salaries are going to start moving up as well

[pitz]

FuteBaller, which publication? I'll take a look.

Are benefits (ie: health insurance, stock bonus, etc.) added to those numbers?

What's lacking is experienced people and unfortunately companies aren't going out of their way to risk training inexperienced workers.

Yeah definitely. Firms won't hire another engineer until their existing staff are literally run off their feet, but when the new engineer arrives, the overworked staff have no time to spend training the new engineer. The new engineer, thus, isn't very productive, doesn't get a raise, doesn't enjoy the experience, and ends up leaving to have babies or something like that.

I think the profession also does a fairly poor job of promoting itself too. You see lots of advertisements for CA's, CMA's, etc. in business publications and even on TV. But you never see ones for the value that P.Eng.'s and EITs can bring to businesses when engineers are placed in management roles. I'm sure most engineers would gladly pay another $100/year towards their APEGGA dues if the money was to be spent on raising the profession's public profile as the drivers of Alberta's economic growth and prosperity.

[TheFuteballer]

It's in the May/June 2008 edition of IEEE Potentials. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll scan it.

Those numbers are just pure salary from what I gathered, no bonuses, etc

[pitz]

Yeah "Potentials" is the magazine they send students, in addition to the full-blown IEEE Spectrum. I don't get the former, so please scan and send :).

[Adage]

I agree, the lack of advertising from the various engineering societies and assocations is disappointing.

From the looks of it, I would assume most of the tradition engineering jobs would be the ones going to be in demand several years from now. I.e traditional electrical engineering, automotive/manufacturing, structural engineering, and probably geological. The other disciplines I'm sure already see a wealth of new grads going into their fields particularly mechanical and chemical as the older generation is retiring.