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U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

computerworld.com

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Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#141

Post by amelius »

nostrademons wrote: post #53
amelius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With more and more tools and development philosophies coming available (React, Go, NodeJS, etc.) we need less and less exceptional programmers :)

That's not really true - with more and more tools and development philosophies coming available, we need more and more experienced programmers with the judgment to choose between them and apply them to the problem at hand.

If you have a team with 10 programmers, only 1 of them needs to be smart enough to pick the right tools for the other 9.

Also, I think tools are converging in the most important areas. So eventually it will not matter much which tools you use.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#142

Post by cplease »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #54
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm comparing computer science majors, which is the majority (80% in 2015) of those in the computer science category. I think this removes outliers like someone getting a bachelors in computer science with a major in financial engineering at Cornell making 200k on Wall Street after graduation. 2014 67,500. 2015 65,004. Down about 3.7%, which adds up over time. Either way, from my point of view, the software "professi…

Market prices for anything are a random walk in the short-term. Let's look at some longer trends if we want to draw sound conclusions.

Salaries are not a random walk in the short term. A dip is significant.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#143

Post by nashashmi »

coliveira wrote: post #48
nashashmi wrote: post #16

In response to a comment claiming outsourcing was the issue, I responded with this and thought it relevant to post here: FWIW, the very cap on H-1Bs plus the decreasing attraction of coming to the US is the very reason ALL companies are going overseas. I once did a research on outsourcing and the pivotal reason I found for outsourcing was not the "cheapness" of the foreign markets, but the decreasing flexibility and…

You are buying a completely flawed argument. The reason there are fewer and fewer American factory workers is that nobody is going to pay for a degree for which there are no jobs. If you are in the US and you have to decide on a degree, would you go to do factory-related work, knowing that companies are moving oversees as soon as they can? The only way to get workers for a particular field is to have investments in t…

> [If] you have to decide on a degree, would you go to do factory-related work, knowing that companies are moving oversees as soon as they can

This is a case of which came first: the chicken or the egg? One industry that seems to have rebounded significantly is computer science. In 2003, after the bubble burst, few were pursuing CS. A huge insatiable demand followed afterwards mostly from the emergence of Google, and people started pursuing CS in hordes once again. And today, companies still have an insatiable appetite, and pursuit of employees has encouraged companies to go abroad once more.

In your argument of subsidization, cheap labor, laxed regulation being the culprits of job loss, you are ignoring the friction of traveling abroad and the loss of legal power that comes with outsourcing. There are many advantages and disadvantages to outsourcing. The end result once it all sums up is you get a different product, and a different business. These are not easy things to accept, no matter how much money you save.

And as for your suggestion of a solution, current events have thought me that you swing your strengths in ways where the enemy longs for what you and ignores the advantages they have. Industrial China makes us feel we are weak because our costs are high. And China feels weak because we have the knowledge and technicality to achieve more than what they have. Let's stick to what makes us unique and swing that strength in ways that others feel weak.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#144

Post by super2 »

Nutmog wrote: post #140
super2 wrote: post #105

First they came for the Auto workers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an Auto worker, and I felt they were overpaid and sort of lazy. Then they came for the Electronics manufacturing, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a line worker, and the line workers need to be in high-value fields. Then they came for the Electrical Engineers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a EE, and it seems sort o…

They came for you and stripped you of your privileged position in society that was granted to you by the lottery of birth and maintained by your fellow members of the privileged class? They instead imposed a meritocracy that gave equal opportunities to people from many diverse backgrounds alongside your own? It sounds like a net win from an outsider's perspective.

Self-hating cultural marxists celebrate when good-paying jobs are destroyed and sent overseas.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#145

Post by nostrademons »

amelius wrote: post #141
nostrademons wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true - with more and more tools and development philosophies coming available, we need more and more experienced programmers with the judgment to choose between them and apply them to the problem at hand.

If you have a team with 10 programmers, only 1 of them needs to be smart enough to pick the right tools for the other 9. Also, I think tools are converging in the most important areas. So eventually it will not matter much which tools you use.

That's not actually how high-functioning teams work. If you have one person make all the decisions and pick all the tools, you will have one highly-productive programmer and 9 disengaged programmers who go through the motions of writing code but usually end up creating more work that the one highly-productive programmer will have to undo. End result, he gets burned out, the product never ships, and the 9 disengaged programmers never actually learn how to program.

I've been on teams where everybody understands how a compiler is built & when you'd want to write one, why & when performance matters, how Lisp idioms can translate to C++, when you might want to machine-learn a model and why you might want to do it manually first, and many other basic CS concepts. The difference is night & day from teams that are filled with people who just follow a tutorial and copy/paste examples from StackOverflow. In general, I've found that a team moves at the pace of the slowest member of the team - fill a team with 1 smart guy and 9 folks who just follow their leads and you might as well have just hired the 1 smart guy.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#146

Post by secondtimeuse »

ashwinaj wrote: post #127
secondtimeuse wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not arrive fearing for my life but so did not the guy from Germany or Singapore. Why should birthplace of a person be allowed as a criteria for discrimination. Are you serious, you never heard of families under strain because 6 years into their Green Card application they had to suddenly leave, while at the same time other countries citizen could get a job. Or where someone on OPT couldn't leave to visit their…

Haha..I love debating with you. Your hyperbole gets even better. >"Why should birthplace of a person be allowed as a criteria for discrimination." Because that is the law of the land and it is fair since the number of green cards are allotted EQUALLY to all countries [1]. We just happen to be from a country where there are more number of applicants than green cards available. If it were discriminatory, why did the EB…

Dude you are seriously retarded if you don't realize the discrimination. Here is the article by The Hill that lays out the case and how it affects Indians , Chinese and people from Philippines.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/259076-why...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/13/grass-greener-eb...

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#147

Post by ashwinaj »

secondtimeuse wrote: post #146
ashwinaj wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha..I love debating with you. Your hyperbole gets even better. >"Why should birthplace of a person be allowed as a criteria for discrimination." Because that is the law of the land and it is fair since the number of green cards are allotted EQUALLY to all countries [1]. We just happen to be from a country where there are more number of applicants than green cards available. If it were discriminatory, why did the EB…

Dude you are seriously retarded if you don't realize the discrimination. Here is the article by The Hill that lays out the case and how it affects Indians , Chinese and people from Philippines. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/259076-why... http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/13/grass-greener-eb...

If I'm retarded, please explain to me how a 7% cap per year on all countries is discriminatory and not fair? Would you propose 50% or 100% going to India? That would be discriminatory to other countries.

Stop being emotional and falling for arguments that favor your point of view.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#148

Post by ashwinaj »

Nutmog wrote: post #139
ashwinaj wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha..I love debating with you. Your hyperbole gets even better. >"Why should birthplace of a person be allowed as a criteria for discrimination." Because that is the law of the land and it is fair since the number of green cards are allotted EQUALLY to all countries [1]. We just happen to be from a country where there are more number of applicants than green cards available. If it were discriminatory, why did the EB…

> Because that is the law of the land and it is fair since... By the argument, any legal discrimination that blankets entire groups of people with the same random chance is right and fair. Slavery - OK as long as blacks kidnapped from any African country were treated equally. Segregation - OK as long as blacks anywhere in America got the same treatment. It sounds like a wind-up, but really immigration discrimination…

How about actually finishing my quote?

Please explain to me how a 7% cap per year on all countries is discriminatory and not fair?

As I've mentioned earlier to secondtimeuse, please don't compare the challenges of H1B workers to events in which people were actually murdered or lived in fear of their death. It's ridiculous.

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#149

Post by BurningFrog »

abalashov wrote: post #124
BurningFrog wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If an H-1B employee is fired, they get deported. That was definitely not true during my time on H1B. The feds could legally deport you, but they never bothered to.

Well, yes, but then you're just benefitting from lax de facto enforcement, not any de jure certainty. And anything de facto which operates below the standard demanded by de jure can change at a moment's notice, subject to politics, audits, or someone waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

I am clearly way more cynical than you about legal systems :)

Re: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers

#150

Post by seanxh »

madengr wrote: post #122
seanxh wrote: post #78

I optimistic about such issue. I will say software is good occupation while everything is blooming, but you can be more secure during the down time if you are an EE. Furthermore, you can train yourself to be a good software developer if you next to a computer and have internet access(of course you need dedication), but you cannot be a good EE without knowing how to operate a very expensive equipment(i.e PNA, MOCVD, e…

Sheesh, I have a PNA in my basement lab. My wife can run all sorts of PVD/CVD vacuum processes, dicing, grinding, bonding, etc. We seem both stuck in dead end EE jobs.

I understand your feeling. But speaking about dead end, that is exactly what a concentration means while you pick a major in college, otherwise you can pick liber art. If you change the perspective and think like a you are a software developer without any other skill, you are in dead end too. I think the main problem is laid on whether you like to learn more about other skill sets and take risk to create something new from what you learned
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