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Nov. 17, 2005
Tech Engineers Fear U.S. is Falling Behind; Outsourcing Drives Concern
By Tom Abate
San Francisco Chronicle
U.S. engineers are worried about job security and fearful that the nation
may be losing its technological lead over foreign rivals, according to a
survey of electronics design professionals.
The study, conducted by the trade publication EE Times and the Oregon
communications firm McClenahanBruer, also found widespread movement to work
centers overseas of such engineering tasks as hardware and software design.
The survey is based on responses from roughly 4,000 of the 150,000 engineers
who receive EE Times. Respondents opted to fill out a Web-based survey on
topics ranging from product preferences to national technology policy.
"Nobody that I know has ever gone to the source and asked engineers about
their own profession," EE Times publisher Paul Miller said.
Only 1 in 10 respondents felt that "the U.S. will always maintain its
technology leadership position."
Competition from overseas engineers was of foremost concern. Nearly half of
the respondents said their companies "had sent electronics design work
offshore."
The notion that engineering _ as opposed to manufacturing _ is being sent
abroad represents a new dimension in the offshoring phenomenon, according to
Kerry McClenahan, whose firm co-sponsored the survey.
"The U.S. is in danger of losing its competitiveness," she said. "This is
not a good thing."
The National Academies _ the nation's top science and technology policy body
_ struck much the same note in an October report titled, "Rising Above the
Gathering Storm."
In that report, a panel, whose members included Intel Corp. Chairman Craig
Barrett, warned that "U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and
technology have begun to erode."
Among other findings, the report noted that India and China, together,
trained more than 13 times as many engineers last year as did the United
States. "For the cost of ... one engineer in the United States, a company
can hire about ... 11 engineers in India," the report said.
Given that assessment, it is not surprising that the EE Times survey
detected nervousness among the rank and file.
Only 16 percent of respondents termed their job security "good." More than
half said they were "concerned" about outsourcing. And 10 percent said they
had either lost or were in danger of losing jobs because of it.
Saratoga, Calif., engineer Brian Berg did not participate in the survey. But
based on his 31 years of industry experience, he says that things have
generally gotten tougher, that jobs are harder to come by and that more work
is going overseas.
Berg, who specializes in data storage and has been self-employed for most of
his career, said he and another engineer recently put together a bid to
design a system for a medical-device firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. He
thought the proposal was received well, until the potential client balked at
the price and the job ended up going to a design group in India.
"I've heard of that happening to other people," said Berg, who maintains two
mailing lists used by local, self-employed engineers.
San Jose, Calif., engineer Rich Blomset said whatever challenges lie ahead,
Silicon Valley remains a vibrant center of activity.
"I still see a tremendous amount of innovation here in the valley, and I
don't see that kind of engineering moving away," said Blomset, who works for
Echelon Corp., which creates networks to control electrical distribution,
heating and air-conditioning and similar large-scale systems.
The EE Times survey and the National Academies report both assume that
overseas competition will remain facts of life in high-tech. To keep the
United States competitive, they advocate programs such as better science and
math training starting at the grade-school level.
The trade publication has also started a public-relations campaign to
counteract the "geek" aura that makes engineers feel, well,
underappreciated, according to the survey results.
"We're trying to raise the profile of the profession," Miller said, adding,
"You don't get the iPod without engineers, you don't get Google without
engineers."
A presentation of the results is available at
www.mcbru.com/news/insight2005.php.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
