The Global Engineering Boom

The next career hotspot is evidently in engineering.

Major economies as Japan, Germany and Switzerland seem to be running short of Engineers.

This from the Financial Times (emphasis mine),

``Germany, a land renowned above all for its high standards of engineering, is facing an acute shortage of skilled engineers.

``Franz Fehrenbach, chief executive of Bosch, became the latest businessman to sound the alarm when he warned this week that the lack of engineers was “the key problem for the future”.

``VDI, the German association of engineers, believes the shortage is costing Europe's largest economy €7bn ($11bn, £5.5bn) a year and estimates that there are 95,000 unfilled posts, up from half that number two years ago.

``It is a similar situation in some neighbouring European countries such as Switzerland, where there are several thousand engineers lacking.

`` “Our shortage is not as serious as in Germany but it will get worse,” said Marina de Senarclens, head of Engineers Shape Our Future in Switzerland. “One reason is that new sectors such as financial services need engineers, meaning demand is ahead of supply.

`` “On the other hand, countries such as France and Italy are better at producing engineering students.”

``Mr Fehrenbach said for every 100 old engineers, only 90 young engineers were being trained in Germany, compared with an average of 190 in other western countries.

``Manfred Wittenstein, the founder of engineering company Wittenstein AG and the head of the VDMA engineering association, said: “It could act as a brake on our future growth.”

And so it is in Japan.

The ministry of internal affairs estimates that the digital technology industry alone is short by half a million engineers!

The fundamental problem is one of the declining interests by students in the field of science and engineering.

Courtesy of the New York Times

This from the New YorK Times, ``Universities call it “rikei banare,” or “flight from science.” The decline is growing so drastic that industry has begun advertising campaigns intended to make engineering look sexy and cool, and companies are slowly starting to import foreign workers, or sending jobs to where the engineers are, in Vietnam and India.”

In Japan, embracing foreign workers have been slowed by cultural rigidities.

``In the meantime, the country has slowly begun to accept more foreign engineers, but nowhere near the number that industry needs.

``While ingrained xenophobia is partly to blame, companies say Japan’s language and closed corporate culture also create barriers so high that many foreign engineers simply refuse to come, even when they are recruited.

``As a result, some companies are moving research jobs to India and Vietnam because they say it is easier than bringing non-Japanese employees here.” (NYT)

So aside from career opportunities, the obvious alternative is a potential boom in investments in engineering related business outsourcing here (IF we are able to generate enough quality graduates) and abroad.