Outsourcing Smarts - Death of US Engineering

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The May payroll jobs report released June 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the jobs pattern for the 21st century US economy: employment growth is limited to domestic services.

In May the economy created only 67,000 private sector jobs. Job estimates for the previous two months were reduced by 37,000.

The new jobs are as follows: professional and business services, 27,000; education and health services, 41,000; waitresses and bartenders, 10,000. Manufacturing lost 14,000 jobs.

Total hours worked in the private sector declined in May.
Manufacturing hours worked are 6.6 percent less than when the recovery began four and one-half years ago.

American economists and policymakers are in denial about the effect of jobs offshoring on US employment. Corporate lobbyists have purchased fraudulent studies from economists that claim offshoring results in more US employment rather than less. The same lobbyists have spread disinformation that the US does not graduate enough engineers and that they must import foreigners on work visas.
Lobbyists are currently pushing, as part of the immigration bill, an expansion in annual H-1B work visas from 65,000 to 115,000.

The alleged "shortage" of US engineering graduates is inconsistent with reports from Duke University that 30 to 40 percent of students in its master's of engineering management program accept jobs outside the profession. About one-third of engineering graduates from MIT go into careers outside their field. Job outsourcing and work visas for foreign engineers are reducing career opportunities for American engineering graduates and, also, reducing salary scales.

When employers allege a shortage of engineers, they mean that there is a shortage of American graduates who will work for the low salaries that foreigners will accept. Americans are simply being forced out of the engineering professions by jobs outsourcing and the importation of foreigners on work visas. Corporate lobbyists and their hired economists are destroying the American engineering professions.

American engineering is also under pressure because corporations have moved manufacturing offshore. Design, research and development are now following manufacturing offshore. A country that doesn't make things doesn't need engineers and designers. Corporations that have moved manufacturing offshore fund R&D in the countries where their plants have been relocated.

Engineering curriculums are demanding. The rewards to the effort are being squeezed out by jobs offshoring and work visas. If the current policy continues of substituting foreign engineers for American engineers, the profession will die in the US.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: [e-mail]


http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06062006.html

[Virginia Dare]

1. Another right wing lie debunked....

by a Republican no less.

The Republican Party is anti-American middle class, how can there be any other explanation?

[DELUSIONAL]

2. The "defense" industry

will need a few engineers to work as contractors on military bases. Also there is other work requiring secret and above classification.

But will the engineering departments of colleges and universities survive in order to keep the military industrial complex supplied with engineers.

IF IF if the US corporations were really spending their wind fall profits on R&D -- then US educated engineers would be in high demand.

Basically I'm seeing R&D being ignored -- when this should be the major focus of all manufacturing & industrial corporations.

A whole lot of talent is being wasted. There was a SciAm article years ago which investigated the direction a nation would go if most engineers and R&D people were hired by the military industrial complex or by major consumer industries -- the prediction is the the brain drain by the military industrial complex would harm the non-war segment of the nation.

To stay competitive in the world -- engineering colleges and departments need to provide training to a wide range of students.

Planning for the future seems to be at the bottom of the current leadership's agenda.

[applegrove]

3. There should be billions in US research into alternative fuel cells.

& the like. Not just window dressing. Whoever breaks that lock open will own the comparative advantage for the whole world.

But oil families will not make money as the price of oil goes up due to restricted access (cartel) or whether it follows market pricing (say if it were at $40 a barrel).

I'm placing my bets on the Brazillians or the South Africans or the New Zealanders. Maybe the Japanese. Likely Europe will have a hand in it. Russia? Nope. USA? They choose not to invest there. And whoever has that comparative advantage has the advantage for the next millenium.

[adnelson60087]

4. I teach high school chemistry and astronomy

and have been advising students to go towards careers in math, science, and technology. What should I advise them to do in the near future when there is minimal market for such skills in America?

[applegrove]

5. Tell them to get a higher education in sciences. Boomers retire in

a few years.. on mass and it will be an employees market. PS. IT unemployment rate in Canada is 1.6%.