Why 75% of Engineers Will NEVER Work As Engineers!!

The numbers speak for themselves. Going into this video I was not expecting the results that I found. 75% of engineers don't work in engineering! I knew this anecdotally. But to see it written directly in my face was a shocker. There should not be this many engineers without good jobs, or this many people going to college to get degrees that won't lead to jobs. No matter what people tell you, having and education is nice, but having employment is even better. I still think that an engineering degree or a STEM degree is your best shot at getting employment, so if you choose to do any degree do a STEM degree. This video got me on the rails, I think that our government investments into education could be put to way better use if we had a perfect match of supply and demand when it comes to engineering jobs. But we just keep printing more engineering degrees and there is no reason for the universities to slow down since so many people covet them. I definetly think we need to tell students to look into trade schools or different employment paths because sinking money into an engineering degree with an outcome of 20-30% unemployment is ridiculous.

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Main Notes:
75% OF ENGINEERING GRADUATES END UP DITCHING ENGINEERING AFTER GRADUATION.
Why do most Engineering not end up working in Engineering?

There are a few explanations:
Students say they can't find a job in their field of study.
Employers say there is a lack of qualified workers.
Who's right?

The next logical step would be to say, well, are we graduating too many engineers?

You'll notice that approximately 50% of the engineers who are employed in decent jobs, are likely not working in engineering. Now for them this might not be so bad because maybe they wanted to work in a different field, or maybe they found a job that is more interesting to them. But then what happens to all the other degrees, well the engineers end up taking those jobs because there aren't enough engineering jobs.

The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers did a survey asking 4th year engineering students if they intended to work in engineering after graduation. 92% of respondents said that they would definitely or probably be working in engineering. But as we already know from looking at the statistics, only about 25-30% of them will end up working in engineering at all.

I'm not sure who's to blame here. Is it the fact that Universities are not providing students with the job ready skills that employers want? Is it the fact that the employers are unwilling to spend the time and the money on training a new hire. Is it that the economy is not producing enough engineering jobs? Or are we simply just printing too many degrees and the rate of job creation can't keep up with it. I think that it is a mix of all of these factors, but I'm inclined to think that the biggest proponent is simply too much demand for engineering degrees.

An engineering degree costs about $100,000 in Canada, which means that the large number of Engineers who are underemployed are not putting Government Funding for universities to good use. There is a big mismatch between supply and demand for engineering degrees.

[OliverFoote]

I still think engineering is your best bet if you want a good job. Also university is a time to explore what it is you actually want to do. So don't feel bad if you find you aren't interested in your main field of study, and I actually encourage testing out different classes that interest you. Thanks for watching!

[dallasron]

What’s frustrating for us History majors is knowing that civilization needs engineers a whole lot more than it needs lawyers.

[cameliomack]

Graduated in EE in 1980, made good money, saved up. Retired early with a FAT pension. I couldn't do that today. Ever since Jack Welch laid off thousands of Engineers, the fix has been in. Companies that used to hire people out of college, and train them (me included), won't do that anymore. Rather, they just bid against the few candidates out there. I became a Manager mid-career, which gave me longevity and a higher salary. But, then they told me that we were going to cut some engineering salaries by 40%, and I knew the whole "STEM" shortage crap was total BS. I've felt that way for a long time. To beat the system, get a plain vanilla Engineering degree with "Average U", that doesn't break you, and then get certifications in those things that are "hot". After that, move into management. Oh, and ignore everything management tells you. They're probably lying...

[TangomanX]

I saw this in action. When I was working a tech support job, a co worker had an enginnering degree. He was teasing me about my "Useless" philosophy and psychology degrees. I got the last laugh in the conversation when I pointed out that we have the exact same job role.

[Pseudonym]

The answer is simple, most products need 2-5 engineers, 5-10 practical engineers, 50-100 people with technical skills without any higher education.

[bassbrahim]

I have a Mechanic Engineering degree, graduated top 10% . I cannot get a job worth squat. Don't listen to the stupid stats. It's very hard to land or maintain an engineering job.

[menguardingtheirownwallets]

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, companies would hire new grads out of school and put them directly into training programs. Then starting in the 80s, manufacturing went offshore and companies started demanding that engineers have a few years of experience, and with each decade that passed the level of experience companies demand are ever increasing. When engineering grads see how near-impossible it is for them to get work, they switch to another career.

[mochamp]

Shockingly, I graduated college with a degree in electrical engineering and landed a job directly relating to electrical engineering and it’s a pretty great job too. Biggest advice I can give to people in college or recently graduated is to just apply to everything you possibly can and something will show itself

[TheAnonymous]

I went to a career fair right after university and there was this employer who had a sign showing how much each entry position pay is expected to be. The chef gets paid more than engineers which shows that the company values the guy who cooks eggs more than the people actually running their facilities

[BB-iqsu]

50 years in electrical engineering. 50 years of continuous educating myself. So much fun. Didn't want to retire.

[shawnpa]

One reason engineers have trouble finding work is that the field that traditionally needed engineers, manufacturing has been drastically curtailed in the US and Canada.. Companies will say that they don't have enough engineers applying, but that's in order to open up the employment market to the world. More competition, and also better to hold down wages.

[Vegaswill]

I am an older guy who worked a full career as an Engineer, or as an Engineering manager. I think I can add perspective to this discussion. I found two things often happen to engineers. One is that many folks start out as Engineers but 5 - 10 years into their career, they take other roles within the company. Often the jobs are promotions and pay more than an engineering role. A common thing was for Engineers to progress in the Engineering ranks, then at some point take a job as a project manager, production manager or construction manager or similar. Very often an Engineering Background prepares you for other careers; for example my friends in Finance often say that they like to hire Engineers as Financial Analysists because we can master the math easily compared to others. The second occurrence is that Engineers choose to get advanced degrees in other fields, for example an MBA or Law degree. Very often a Lawyer with an Engineering background is desired in areas such as patent law, or for litigation involving technical issues. Michael Blomberg received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, never worked a day as an Engineer. Me, I loved my Engineering career and never regretted putting in the time and effort to get my credential.

[DesertRat]

I got a Mechanical Engineering degree back in the early 80s. I went into engineering because the calculator had come out and I thought it would be more fun to solve Physics problems with a calculator instead of a slide rule. And it was, but I never used the calculator much in my jobs. Still, no regrets. It was a good career and gave me a good retirement.

[tifvlls]

I think the main reason is you can’t expect high school students to know what they want to be at 17 or 18 just because they are good at math & physics. After 4 years of hell with non inspiring engineering professors, most don’t want to be engineers. I had ChemE degree from UCLA but MS in Organic chemistry and worked as pharmaceutical chemist. Many of my classmates went onto Med schools, MBA or law schools. Only about 1/3 became engineers

[marcor]

A job as engineer requires the right attitude, soft skills and personality traits. They don't hire you because you have a degree but becuase you are brillant. In the past holding a degree in engineering was a guarantee to be brillant, nowadays education has become an industry like any others and churns out as much graduates as possible.
Having a good referral is a great way to land a job, as unfair as it may sound.

[TheCASSMAN]

I'm an electrical engineering technician. My job is to maintain telecommunications equipment. I don't have an engineering degree. I just got this job because I did something similar in the military. I have a few coworkers who have actual electrical engineering degrees, but are technicians instead.

What I often tell young people in high school is to get a trade job to see if they like it, and if they want to go to college, take college part time while they work. If they don't like college, then they can do trade jobs instead.

[sejtano]

the STEM shortage has always been a lie, at least for the past 30 years

[monsterbeast]

2 months into my engineering program, I wanted to quit and my parents didn't let me. It took me little bit longer than others to graduate but I wouldn't want it any other way now, I am so glad I never quit on it!

[igboman]

I left Electrical engineering and went into computer science and I never looked back. Financially rewarding and challenging

[addertooth]

As a person who has worked in Engineering since 1980, has applied for jobs in Engineering, and also interviews candidates for engineering, I know the answer.

1. Graduate quality has declined. I am shocked at the basic functional and math skills of graduates today. They are not the same quality of product they once were (on the average). They require more training than those from previous generations. Old-School "electronic technicians" understand electrical engineering better than almost all graduates with an EE. Most of the old electronic techs have died off or retired, so at least that competition is less of an issue. I was designing complete Satellite receivers (including packaging and ergonomics) as an "electronic tech".

2. Most graduates don't even know the basics. Several I have interviewed probably could not assemble a bicycle without watching a YouTube video. For electrical engineers, their knowledge of basic electronics is astoundingly poor. Several choke when I ask them: "design a class A amplifier using a 2n2222 transistor where I want to see a voltage gain of 5, and linear in the range of 2 to 7 volts AC. I want it to drive a 1k ohm load and have an input impedance of 10k ohm". Most will not be able to do it, or they will ask for the specifications for a 2n2222 (which I give them). They still fail.
I will ask them to lay out a basic Butterworth filter, using a LM741C op-amp, with a low-pass roll-off of 6dB per octave, beginning at 660 Hz. They crash on that one too. Chemical Engineers also struggle with basic questions like valances or electronegativity. Most struggle with terms like Cathodic protection. Mechanical engineers seem to be unable to calculate maximum shear load for Engineered roof trusses unless they have the pre-canned engineering tool they had as a crutch in college.

Employer fault issues:

Employers put out ridiculous requirement lists for jobs. Must have degree, must have experience with a narrow and uncommon product type. Must have familiarity with their narrow and specific engineering tools (used by the last 3 guys they fired). If they do work for government, US citizen, with security clearance, high credit score (they don't actually tell you they are running this), as it is a "position of trust".

Employers don't understand what they actually need. They ask for But actually need C, M, Y, K. In some cases, they don't have the former guy to train you up, so you have to walk in the door with all the skills they need. I don't know how many engineering jobs that the scope changed, and the required skill sets morphed over time. If you are with an organization a decade, your replacement cannot be filled by a single person. The odds of someone off the street walking in with identical specialized skills is nearly zero. Heaven help you if the previous engineer was a top 1 percenter. Chances are, you will never measure up.

Ultimately, most companies have tooling which was specified by a previous engineer. His selection of tools matched his way of engineering. The company has spent millions on those tools. The companies don't want to spend millions on the "correct set of tools for the job", until they have seen a "return on investment on the tools they already bought". This may leave your hands tied at some workplaces.

And yes, I am that top 1 percenter. They are easy to spot. Companies are never able to fill the void left by their departure. Entire companies fold after they leave (or write massive red-ink).
One of the keys to Engineering is simple: You only learn about 5% of what you need in college. You have to work hard after college to gain that additional 95% of knowledge.