To: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 06:32:49 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] disappearing electrical engineers
From: Ron Kean <ronkean at juno.com>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 20:59:04 -0500 mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us> writes:
> Excerpt:
> Despite an expanding use of electronics in products, the number of
> people
> working as electrical engineers in U.S. declined by 10.4% last
> year.
>

Despite an expanding consumption of food in the US, with an ever
increasing number of mouths to feed, the number of farmers in the US has
declined dramatically since 1900.  Even so, the physical volume of food
exports from the US has increased dramatically over the same time period.

The main reason for this is the huge increase in productivity in farming,
due to mechanization and science application to farming.  There were
large numbers of subsistence farmers in 1900 and earlier, but hardly any
today in this country.  Another reason may be the definition of 'farmer'
as the owner-operator of a farm, whereas more broadly people who work on
farms are classified as 'farm workers', a different category more
numerous than 'farmers'.  Many people who work in support of farming,
e.g. people who service farm equipment, and workers in state and federal
agricultural extension services, are not counted as farmers.  As the
average size of farms has increased, the number of 'farmers' will have
decreased relative to what it would have been absent the farm size
increase.  The reported decline in the number of farmers probably masks a
deeper decline in the number of 'real' farmers, since many classed as
farmers are really hobby farmers, for example semi-retired people who
have a small 'farm' that doesn't actually produce much.

The decline in EEs in the US should be seen in a worldwide context.  I'm
pretty sure that the number of EEs in the world as a whole has been
increasing, not decreasing, whether one looks back 10 years, or 20, or
30, or 50.  These days, the EEs behind electronic products consumed in
one country are most likely located in some other country, and a product
manufactured in one country was often designed in another.

Ron Kean

> The decline amounted to a loss of 35,000 jobs and increased the
> unemployment rate for electrical engineers from 3.4% in 2012 to 4.8%
> last
> year, an unusually high rate of job losses for this occupation.
>
> There are 300,000 people working as electrical engineers, according
> to
> U.S. Labor Department data analyzed by the IEEE-USA. In 2002, there
> were
> 385,000 electrical engineers in the U.S.
>
> The trend in electrical engineering employment is occurring despite
> the
> emergence of the so-called Internet of Things, which promises to
> put
> networked electronics into every imaginable consumer and industrial
> product.
> --- end excerpt ---
>
<http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_shortage_Electr
ical_engineering_lost_35_000_jobs_last_year>
>
>           mark
>

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