Here's Your Pink Slip

Date: Sunday, February 16, 2003 3:52 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

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>From the pages of Design News + Product Design and Development

Here's Your Pink Slip
By Terry Costlow, Contributing Editor -- 2/3/2003

Chicago - The layoffs of the past couple years have hit electronic
engineers in particular hard, and that's prompting some EEs to start
leaving the field for marketing, law, and other fields. Some industry
leaders say engineering is facing serious problems, though others
contend engineers are surviving the current downturn better than most.

The president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers-USA recently turned up the heat in a speech discussing
"serious threats to the long-term viability of U.S. engineering
careers." She cites competition from foreign engineers in low-cost
countries and corporate attempts to cut costs by hiring engineers on a
temporary contract basis as key issues.

"For people who view this as a career, engineering is in worse shape
now than it's been in years," says LeEarl Bryant, IEEE-USA president.
There's no shortage of EEs who agree with her, and some are voting with
their feet. "I spent seven years in school for a six-year career," says
Paul Porter, a 29-year-old with BSEE and MSEE degrees from the
University of Texas.

He's leaving troubled Nortel Networks, which recently added his wife
and several close friends to its 50,000-plus layoffs, after spending
three years on assignment in Germany. Saying the future for engineers
looks bleak, he's heading back to school to seek an MBA.

EEs have been particularly battered by the current downturn. The
computer and telecommunications segments have issued more than 800,000
pink slips since the start of 2001, according to Challenger, Gray &
Christmas, an outplacement firm.

Moreover, there's some concern that college students are shying away
from engineering. After peaking at 77,572 in 1985, the number of
engineering graduates has declined, according to the National Science
Foundation.

However, some observers feel that the profession is in no danger, and
that it's faring better than most in the current economic downturn. "I
think engineering is very healthy, salaries are up," says Win Philips,
chairman of the American Association of Engineering Societies.

He adds that while engineers have been hit hard during the last couple
years, they're managing better than most. "Usually if an engineer is
laid off, a dozen other people are losing their jobs," Phillips says.

Though the overall profession may be doing well, not everyone feels it
has the stability that it has offered for decades. "Getting an
electronic engineering degree is a prerequisite to go into marketing,"
says Mark Schaeffer, a 38-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He has
been leveraging his MSEE degree by working in finance and marketing.

One of the things that EEs feel is most galling is competition from
offshore. The Internet is fostering a trend towards collaborative
engineering, and a growing number of the collaborators are offshore.
Engineers in India, Eastern Europe and China often work for a fraction
of U.S. wages, so many firms contract work out overseas.

But it's when foreigners come to this country that really raises the
ire of many EEs. Congress currently allows 195,00 temporary H-1B
workers into the U.S. every year. Many feel that figure is too high,
particularly in a depressed economy. They contend that H-1Bs make
substantially less than U.S. citizens, and regulations make it
difficult for H-1Bs to change employers. That makes them attractive to
firms trying to cut costs.

"About 800,000 engineers were unemployed a few months ago. If you take
out the H-1Bs who came in, you'd have jobs for all of them," Bryant
says.

Another key issue is age discrimination. It's particularly acute in
software, which is changing far faster than in other engineering
disciplines. "There's rampant age discrimination in the software
field," says Norm Matloff, a computer science professor at the
University of California at Davis.

Matloff, Bryant, and others contend that firms feel new college grads
are more familiar with the latest technologies. Conversely, overworked
engineers find it difficult to learn about new technology.

However, some contend that this is simply a factor of rapid changes in
technology. National Academy of Engineering President William Wulf
notes that this is because the half life of engineering knowledge is
from two to seven years.

"Engineers have to embrace lifelong learning as a normal mode of
behavior," Wulf says.

Some Engineers Left Feeling Jilted

Chicago - While a solid percentage of engineers are fairly happy with
their career choice, many don't like what they see happening to the
profession. These disaffected engineers spent years in school pursuing
a career they loved, but changing conditions have tempered those
feelings.

Paul Porter started out strong, being "gung ho" about the profession
when he had six job offers after earning his masters in electronic
engineering. After a couple so-so jobs, the travel buff felt he had a
dream job when Nortel Networks sent him to Germany on a three-year
assignment.

But Nortel's troubles and a grim view of the overall profession have
left him sour. "The writing's on the wall. Engineers are bit of a
commodity," says Porter. Now, he's exploring his educational options,
hoping to translate his experience into a career with a brighter future
than in engineering.

He's not alone in feeling jilted by engineering, wondering whether
today's young engineers can improve their lifestyle throughout the
course of their career. In high school, Mark Schaeffer dreamed of
becoming an engineer or scientist. He backed that dream up with hard
work, winning a full college scholarship. Now he views an engineering
degree as a ticket to flat salaries and the specter of layoffs.

"Long term, if you don't go somewhere else beyond engineering, you're
not going to be able to support your family," says Mark Schaeffer.
Though still shy of 40, he decided years ago to leave engineering to
pursue his version of the American dream by adding finance and
marketing skills to his resume.

Offshore competition and age discrimination are linked by many
engineers. "Unfortunately, the natural laws of engineering don't
change. It doesn't matter whether you were in Bangalore or Boise when
you learned how electrons move," says Gene Nelson, a Texan, recently
laid off for the seventh time in his 19-year career.

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