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Maybe Not
It’s become an accepted piece of conventional wisdom. The United States, it’s said, is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world because of continuing shortage of scientists and engineers. Maybe not.
[This has also been posted on my personal blog.]
7 Responses to “Maybe Not”
The United States, it’s said, is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world because of continuing shortage of scientists and engineers willing to work for Chinese or Indian wages .
I think the article (and your title) misses the point. We have unemployed engineers looking for work because the jobs are being outsourced. Companies are willing to spend 100 million on the salary of some CEO windbag, but they won't pay 100,000 for a talented engineer to design and create products. The shrinking job opportunities will now discourage college students from the profession, and then the companies will complain about how they have to outsource because there are no qualified people in this country. It's an ugly feedback loop that will result in the U.S. losing it's leadership in technology and innovation. While bankers “innovate” new ways to rip us off, real innovation will be lost. Our technological golden age of the second half of the 20th century came about from WWII veterans being encouraged to get technical degrees in college. The Cold War and the new global economy spurred research and development, providing jobs for all these new graduates. Now this is all being lost.
Don Quijote has it right. In California especially, the massive influx of not so talented PhDs from China and India are forcing other PhDs out of academia. They work for less than the NIH standards, do not receive paid vacations or sick days, and for the most part are treated like indentured servants by the U of C system. They come to the US on J1 Visas, meaning if they don't work 60 hours, they are fired and shipped back to their home country. You can imagine what this does to the job market. Better to have 3 scientist slaves from China than 1 good scientist from the US.
shannonlee — I would agree with some of what you say about the economics and job market issues you mention, but as an engineer, I would certainly take exception to your characterisation of PhDs from China and India as “not so talented”. One of the problems (for US engineers/scientists), is that those two particular countries have huge populations of people to draw on, education is considered extremely important, and quite frankly, they tend to work a lot harder than Americans. So you've got extremely hard working people who are no less bright than Americans and are willing to work for less. Now, the one place where I see Americans having advantages over countries like China and India, where they groom young people (men, mostly) to go into these professions from the time they are junior high age, is that Americans, who generally have to be more well rounded at least in high school, have more “out-of-the-box” abilities, adaptability, communication skills, and strong leadership abilities.
Roro…well, it wasn't particularly wise of me to generalize all people from China and India, but as an engineer that works in Los Angeles, all I can do is speak for my own experiences in both private life and academia. While I have met many good workers from both countries, one being my CIO and he is quite exceptional, for the most part, the people I have come across are lazy and lack drive. Half of them have been in this country for a decade and can barely speak the language.
But that is just my experience in LA…the gateway to the East.
shannonlee — First, assuming from your name that you are a woman: yay women engineers! (there aren't many of us out there!)
Second, I'm really surprised that you've had that experience; I work in the Silicon Valley, and my experience has been extremely different as far as the work ethic and dedication of foreign engineers working in the States. Of course, I certainly wouldn't characterize a person as lazy or lacking in drive because they haven't picked up the language. A cross section of people who are gifted in math and science will likely contain very few who are gifted in picking up languages, or even being big talkers or readers, for that matter. They're skills driven by entirely different sides of the brain. Sometimes the language barrier hinders things, of course, but it's not that different from white-dude engineers who communicate poorly.
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Perhaps the “falling behind” is more from lack of Heart than anything else.
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