Are Engineering Shortages a Hoax?

There is no shortage of engineers. There is a shortage of engineers willing to work for the wages employers want to pay, namely the wage immigrant and/or outsourced engineers will work for.

Engineering is typically considered a cost center rather than a profit center, so the non-technical management doesn't understand the impact a good engineer has on the bottom line. Therefore, they go for low cost and make engineering one of the first departments hit by lay-offs.

Yeah, if you don't pay very much, good help is hard to find.

I agree with you.Employers consider engineer,s facilities like company car as expense while marketeer,s expenses as income although a marketeer can't sell engineering goods without consulting the engineer.

yes there is no real shortage of engineers, its only the hoax been created. if proper salry packages are been provided we can get good engineers for better work environments.

Yes and no.

What there IS a shortage of is specialized engineers knowledgeable in specific applications. For example, acoustic engineers experienced in sound abatement (like for subways) are hard to find, no matter how much money you throw at them. A former employer of mine looked for one for two years and didn't find one ... until a fellow from France decided to move here to Canada and just happened to ask if my employer had a need.

Another example: the power sector is very short of engineers. A department at the NY Power Authority told me that if 5,000 power engineers were to appear out of nowhere, they'd all get jobs instantly.

Also, a fellow at NRG Energy told me four years ago that it was ready to ready to launch a project for a nuclear power plkant in California; all permits had been obtained, etc., and there were no more regulatory hurdles. The project hasn't gone ahead to date; and back when I talked to the fellow at NRG Energy, the problem was lack of manpower available.

So, there are enough engineers overall: but there aren't enough engineers (and others) with particular qualifications.

Cheers! DZ

I think the other posters have identified the problem. There are lots of engineers graduating from university, but the opportunities in industry are just not attractive financially.

These new graduates are very skilled with numbers and mathematics. This is only marginally valuable to industry, but it is very very valuable to the Financial sector. I think a lot of engineers have been lured to the big banks and investment firms to make big money.

I work as an engineer. When I come in to the office I walk past rows of Mercedes Benz's, BMW's and Porches. It's not the engineers who are driving these cars. A young engineer is doomed to a life as a techno-drone, driving his Toyota Corolla to work.

If he is skilled with mathematics, why should't the young engineer work in the financial sector and earn enough to drive a Ferrari? Should he feel guilty for leaving his engineering career behind? Ask him in five years when he has an extra quarter-million dollars in his pocket.

As an example take an electrical engineering graduate who has studied symmetrical components,stability of generator,fault calculations etc but who cannot check an AVR in an alternator or cannot assess the load in an installation or cannot locate the fault in a cable but talks stupidly and paid higher salary and company vehicle etc discouraging experienced engineers

in power sector diploma engineers are treated as pioneers of electrical engg. and degree engineers are recruited below them.Thus they compromise in quality of work. Thats why degree engineers are going for MBA and join whereever they get the opportunity.