IEEE-USA President's Column

 

 
President's Column
November 2004

My predecessor as IEEE-USA president, Jim Leonard, has worked as an engineer for the same company for more than 40 years. But I suspect few engineers in the future will work that long for the same organization. In the electrical and computer engineering areas, continual job change will be the rule. This is set against a backdrop of recent career trends that seem to be working against U.S. IEEE members, each contributing to a shrinking U.S. high-tech workforce:

• The significant and continued productivity gains since 1995 means that fewer workers can do the same work now that more workers did before. For example, between 1995 and 2002, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States dropped by 11 percent while output increased 30 percent.

• The influx of foreign guest workers on H-1B and L-1 visas has increased the supply of high-tech workers in this country, suppressing wages. Research shows that real wages for engineers and computer scientists have not increased in 20 years.

• Ever-cheaper global communications means that offshore outsourcing will continue. Some 160,000 U.S. IT jobs have disappeared in the past three years, and both the number employed and the number unemployed have dropped. Best estimates are that 2 to 4 percent of computer jobs and 5 percent of call center work is done in India, where about 80 percent of the overseas white-collar jobs go. Congress is calling for studies by GAO and outside groups to quantify the extent to which the offshoring phenomenon may be reducing career opportunities in the United States.

• The retirement of long-time workers (noted in the report of the President’s Commission on the Future of the Aerospace Industry, inter alia) means that some of the continuing shrinkage will occur through attrition — simply not replacing the retiring workers with new grads.

The 1997 publication of Workforce 2020 by the Hudson Institute noted that as Baby Boomers reach retirement age, 80 percent of them will not fully retire because they want the stimulation of work, they are living longer than previous generations did, and they will need supplemental income to augment pensions and retirement savings. This will further reduce demand for new grads, as part-time work leads to job sharing, and as laws governing pensions are revised to permit partial retirement.

In the early 1990s, as entire levels of middle management were eliminated from industry, mentoring of new workers effectively disappeared. But with the retention of intellectual capital, represented by the older workers continuing past retirement age, mentoring may see a rebirth in the corporate world. This will be a good omen for U.S. competitiveness.

So, for you to enjoy a career in engineering, you have to demonstrate to employers that you bring value to the organization and you’re up-to-date on the latest technologies. Although it is possible for work to be performed thousands of miles away, there will always be a need for face-to-face personal contact. This makes communication skills and the ability to work well with others extremely important to your career prospects. IEEE-USA has a number of career resources available. Check them out at www.ieeeusa.org/careers.

Updated:  15 May 2007
Contact: Pender M. McCarter, p.mccarter@ieee.org