A short circuit for US engineering careers

Date: Monday, December 30, 2002 10:04 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

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It's great to see that LeEarl Bryant, president of the Institute of
Electronic and Electronic Engineers (IEEE-USA), recognizes that H-1B is
undermining their engineers careers.

Bryant's statements are encouraging but don't assume that all of IEEE
supports her. IEEE-USA has bucked heads with the worldwide version of IEEE
before and the pro H-1B crowd always has won. IEEE still gets support from
industry and academia and that means that straying too far away from
supporting H-1B can be dangerous.

IEEE-USA has a position paper below. There are a few problems with it that
indicate IEEE-USA still doesn't understand the entire problem. The detailed
paper is at http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POLICY/12nov02.pdf.

Here are some concerns worth noting:

* They said that there is a need to strengthen math and science education at
the K-12 level. Oh puleeeeeeeese! This is the standard line used by Harris
Miller. The line goes something like this: Since science and engineering in
the US is so much worse than everywhere else in the world, companies have no
choice but to hire foreigners that can add, subtract, and multiply.

* Lifelong learning is emphasized as a way to decrease demand for H-1Bs.
While it is true that technical workers need continuous education, that
alone won't get them hired. H-1Bs are cheaper and they are indentured. That
means if a company trains them with the skill-of-the-moment they know that
they can hang onto that H-1B for at least 3 years. Unless Americans start
signing indentured contracts this isn't going to get jobs back.

* IEEE wants H-1B limits reduced to 65,000 a year. H-1B should be abolished
because 65,000 is too many. Other visas such as the L-1 will more than take
up the slack once H-1B falls back to 65,000 in 2004.

* IEEE advocates that the educational background of the H-1Bs is "rigorously
verified". That's supposed to be done now but the system is fraudulent. They
are very misguided to think that a government agency is going to verify
every single H-1B petitioner.

* They want to insure that L-1 visas aren't used to circumvent the H-1B
restrictions. The best way to insure that is to abolish both visas.

* They want to re-introduce labor attestations to verify that no American is
available for the job. Attestations were done from 1990-2000 and everyone,
including the GAO concluded that it doesn't work. It's just too easy to fool
the system by running fake newspaper ads and doing sham interviews.

* Remember the old "Green Cards, Not Guest Workers” slogan from IEEE's dark
and dirty marriage with Paul Donnelly? It appears that they still haven't
divorced this bad idea yet.

In conclusion the IEEE statement is a step forward but the problem is that
their ship sank a long time ago. Using a bailing cup to remove the water
isn't going to get this job done.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1226/p02s01-usec.html

A short circuit for US engineering careers

Faced with foreign competition and an ever-faster pace, many engineers are
dropping out of a once-safe field.
By Terry Costlow | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

CHICAGO - Paul Porter is closing the door on his engineering career - even
though he's only 29. In recent weeks, his wife and five close colleagues
were added to the more than 50,000 employees axed by his employer, Nortel
Networks. That was the catalyst that prompted the New York native, already
disgruntled with his choice of profession, to look into attending either
business or law school.

"I spent seven years in school, and it resulted in a six-year career," says
Mr. Porter, who feels his master's degree in engineering is little more than
"a base."

It's a pattern that's recurring with surprising, and disturbing, frequency
in a profession long known for job security.

Dissatisfaction with the field is growing rapidly. Layoffs, the influx of
foreign workers, and offshore outsourcing of jobs have caused the
pocket-protector set to either leave the profession in large numbers or seek
new careers after being laid off.

And if that isn't enough to make engineers' neckties curl in Dilbert-style
desperation, there's the nature of the work itself. In an era when high-tech
gear becomes obsolete almost as fast as dairy products, many in the field
feel they must advance at a steady pace or risk being cast aside.

It's a far cry from the era when engineering skills were a ticket to a
lifelong salary and, some say, raises questions about America's ability to
remain at the forefront of technology.

"For people who view this as a career, engineering is in worse shape now
than it's been in years," says LeEarl Bryant, president of the Institute of
Electronic and Electronic Engineers (IEEE-USA), which represents 235,000
professional members.

The downturn in the profession has taken many by surprise. In the '80s many
felt there was an engineering shortage in the US to compete with Japan's
dominance of technology markets. Then, the commercialization of the Internet
created a hiring frenzy in which high-tech corporations gave huge bonuses to
new hires and the employees who referred them. The IEEE-USA reports that
such bonuses pushed the median salary for its members to $93,100 at the peak
of the dotcom era.

Tough times; huge layoffs
But all that changed with the dotcom bust and the recession. This year, for
example, telecommunications and computer makers have already slashed nearly
400,000 workers - and that's down from last year's 500,000 layoffs -
according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Even Dilbert creator Scott Adams, himself a former engineer, has an eye on
the trend. "The general balance of power has swung. Engineers had it for a
while, now the bosses have it back," says Mr. Adams, whose comic-strip boss
has hair shaped like a pair of horns on either side of his balding head.

Adding to the frustration of some engineers are the numbers of foreigners
competing for jobs. In 2000, near the end of the high-tech boom, industry
CEOs convinced Congress to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, allowing
up to 195,000 skilled workers from India and elsewhere into the US. Some
engineers contend that those CEOs kept many of those H-1B workers while
cutting higher-paid US citizens.

"About 80,0000 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," the IEEE-USA's
Bryant says. The organization is lobbying Congress to lower the number of
H-1B issued.

But US companies may continue to rely on foreign workers as the number of
people entering the profession shows signs of decline. Demand for
engineering courses is down in the US, according to the National Science
Foundation statistics. In 2000, there were just over 59,000 engineering
graduates compared to 63,000 students in 1996.

Not everyone is gloomy about prospects in the profession, however. "Salaries
are up, and we're faring better [concerning layoffs] than many other
professions," says Win Philips, chairman of the American Association of
Engineering Societies.

Shorter careers than athletes
Many engineers are facing a challenge of a different sort. Graying engineers
who have decades of work experience are as rare as a black and white TV.
Even those under 40 are often considered old: A computer-science professor
in California has statistics to show that programmers have careers not much
longer than pro-football players.

"The half-life of engineering knowledge, the time it takes for something to
become obsolete, is from seven to 2-1/2 years. Lifelong learning is critical
in this profession," says William Wulf, president of the National Academy of
Engineering. Still, he says, engineering is "an incredibly exciting and
rewarding profession."

http://ieeeusa.org/releases/2002/120202pr.html

Contact: Chris McManes
Marketing Communications/Public Relations Coordinator
Phone: +1 202 785 0017, x8356
E-mail: c.mcmanes@ieee.org

IEEE-USA President Describes Threats
Facing U.S. Engineers at Summit on the
U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce

WASHINGTON (02 December 2002) — IEEE-USA President LeEarl Bryant pointed to
recent sharp increases in engineering unemployment and declining real wages
as serious threats to the long-term viability of U.S. engineering careers at
the National Academies' Pan Organizational Summit on the U.S. Science and
Engineering Workforce last month.

Bryant expressed serious concerns about the potentially adverse, long-term
effects of workforce utilization practices that are making engineering jobs
less secure and engineering careers more tenuous than ever. She cited the
increasing reliance by employers on temporary foreign workers, non-standard
employment arrangements and outsourcing of engineering work to lower cost,
offshore locations. Non-standard employment arrangements utilize contingent,
part-time, or contract workers instead of regular, full-time employees to
reduce labor costs and facilitate just-in-time delivery of high value-added
products and services, Bryant explained.

Unfortunately, management's short-term emphasis on labor flexibility seems
to be creating long-term disincentives to continuing participation by many
of the nation's best and brightest in America's engineering enterprise, the
IEEE-USA president said.

Many aspiring and experienced engineers, when confronted with the prospect
of periodic unemployment and flat or declining real wages, are voting with
their feet and opting for careers in fields that offer more long-term job
security and higher real wages — fields such as business administration, law
and medicine.

Other important issues highlighted by the IEEE-USA president included the
need to: provide timely information on engineering labor market conditions;
strengthen math and science education in grades K-12; expand engineering
educational and employment opportunities for women, minorities, handicapped
and older Americans; improve lifelong learning (continuing education) for
practicing engineers and scientists; and reform the nation's educational and
employment-based immigration system.

For the entire work, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POLICY/12nov02.pdf.

The 11-12 November invitational meeting was hosted by the National
Academies' Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) and
attended by representatives from more than 40 national organizations,
including business associations, educational institutions, government
agencies and professional societies. Its purpose was to enable stakeholders
to identify causes and recommend solutions to problems affecting supply and
demand for U.S. scientists and engineers. For more information on GUIRR, go
to http://www7.nationalacademies.org/guirr/.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers created in 1973 to promote the careers and
public-policy interests of the more than 235,000 electrical, electronics,
computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE
is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information,
go to http://www.ieeeusa.org.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. — United States
of America
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202
Washington, DC 20036-5104
Phone: 202-785-0017, Fax: 202-785-0835

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