In my graduation year in Engineering at Queen’s University (1987), the powers that be threw a slate of seminars at us, where the grey hairs wisely intoned our future in the brave world that we were about to enter. I cannot for the life of me tell you what was said for the most part and I am sure that it had no impact on my leap into the “Real World”. One speaker’s words did however stay with me over the years. I suspect that I remember that speaker because I had a nagging suspicion at the time that he was most likely wrong and I know today as an almost grey hair myself that he was most definitely wrong. That speaker (President of a Manufacturing Association) based his speech on the premise that Canada was heading towards a shortage of Engineers that was going to cripple our competitiveness and productivity and hurl us to third world status. I exaggerate only slightly. Our friends in Australia were recently the subject to the same nonsense by Consult Australia. Our cousins in the United States seems to spout the same stuff but only when a new immigration bill is about to pass. It is always possible to verify the supply side of the equation (graduates) but for the life of me, I can never surmise where the demand side numbers (jobs) come from other than the fertile minds of employers who are after inexpensive talent. For the record, I believe that there was only one shooter on the grassy knoll.
Some 23 years later, Canada did not head down the road of economic stagnation and alas, the wages of engineers did not rise to reflect the predicted shortage although they did rise in a quite predictable manner over that time. In summary, they generally went up in good times and less so in bad times. Predictably, those professions that did keep down the number of graduates (Doctors, Accountants, Dentists) saw an astonishing rise in wages. And apart from doctors, no one has noticed a “shortage” of any other profession although we do like to complain about how much they cost. I will add that I have never heard of a project anywhere in world that was cancelled due to a lack of engineering talent.
Through 23 years, I have been on both sides of the fence as an employee and an employer. As an employee, I was quite successful in staying employed but there always appeared to be no shortage of competition. As my career has progressed, I have the opportunity to hire engineers and I found that there was indeed a shortage of engineers. There was a shortage of that one brilliant, eloquent, thoughtful, multi-faceted, self motivated, independent team player willing to work for job satisfaction and a measly stipend. So I almost always settle for the reasonably smart, eager, somewhat experienced malleable personality that I will hopefully turn into something akin to what I really want at a reasonable wage and there are always plenty of those…
Sean Fung is a Principle at “Specialized Systems + Instrumentation” and is automating the world one machine at a time
