ot so long ago-say, 1992-engineers emphatically, decisively, derisively knocked down any suggestion of an engineering shortage. "It is preposterous that amidst massive layoffs of engineers, the NSF [National Science Foundation] still projects an 'engineer shortage,'" one Californian wrote in 1992. He had plenty of company. That year, 87 percent of EEs and their bosses responding to our survey slammed the idea of shortages. With good reason. "Downsizing" became the management buzzword of the early '90s. EE unemployment touched
6 percent, a record high in this usually stable profession. Five years later, after a steady rise that began with the economic recovery in 1993-94, half the readership (50.5 percent) now admits: Yes, there's a shortage of engineers. Our non-scientific, Web-based "Salary Survey Opinion Poll" of 98 respondents was even more emphatic: 73 people declared a shortage; 21 said no. That's a major concession. Never, in the 20 -plus years we've been doing the "Worldwide Salary Opinion Survey" have U.S. engineers acknowledged there might not be enough of themselves to go around. They were mostly right through the 1970s and '80s, as bad years offset good ones for engineering employment. One misstep by an industry segment such as defense electronics or semiconductors, and out went thousands of engineers. Thousands of EEs immigrated from India and Asia, adding to the pool.

More readers, however, are now buying into the idea that perhaps we're entering an entirely new phase of engineering employment-at least for such widely used technical personnel as software engineers, who can be found in virtually every industry segment.

"There's a huge lack of trained, technical work force to support future growth and dominance," said a Massachusetts senior engineer responding to this year's survey.

A technical director at a California computer company sees a shortage of "engineers with an in-depth understanding of fundamentals. There are many one-dimensional engineers who know a little about a little. The engineers do not have the ability to comprehend or deal with related but different specialty areas: e.g., analog/digital; RF/microwave, etc."

Of course, every stick has two ends. Let's not forget the other half of our sample who maintains there's no shortage.

"It is not a shortage of engineers," a software manager insisted. "It is a hiring freeze. There are enough engineers on the market-companies don't have money to hire them."

Another engineer believes the shortage is really a managerial issue.

"I think it is more of a turnover problem with software engineers," writes a Virginia systems engineer. "Workloads are not consistent, making people 'migrate' to the next task-usually to another company, leaving a hole to be filled."

As that last comment suggests, much of the talk about shortages has revolved around software engineers. The Information Technology Association of America declared earlier this year that there is a gap of 190,000 jobs in information technology, including software. An alliance of educators, government program managers and industry has banded together to attract more students and experienced personnel into software.

Some 47 percent of all EE Times survey respondents say the lack of engineers has delayed or cut back their 1996-97 projects. That's up from the 42 percent who answered yes to the same question last year. Again, our non-scientific, Web-surfer poll offers higher numbers: 56 people said personnel shortages have hung up projects, while 36 said no.

Examining the survey percentages more closely shows that, like last year, managers felt the squeeze more acutely than engineering-level employees. Some 56 percent of design and development managers said their projects were delayed in the past year, vs. 50 percent of engineers. Some 31 percent of EE Times readers who side with the shortage proponents agree that software presents the biggest gap. Our Web-poll respondents also listed software engineers as the scarcest commodity.

Other shortages cited by readers:

• Design engineers (20 percent)
  
• RF engineers (6.6 percent)
  
• Hardware engineers (6.6 percent)
  
• Programmers (4.8 percent)
  
• ASIC designers (3.7 percent)
  
• Embedded-systems engineers (3.3 percent)
  

More broadly, 16 percent of the sample complained about not being able to find "experienced, qualified personnel," and 12 percent grumbled about not having enough EEs.

Some readers were really specific, such as a Tennessee engineer who said the problem "is finding people willing to move to a non-high-tech area for a startup company." That is tough. If you're laid off in Tennessee, you don't have a backup position down the road, as you might in Phoenix or San Diego.

A similar theme was sounded by this Ohioan: The shortage is of engineers "q ualified, competent and willing to live in suburban Cincinnati."

The only shortage that a Vermont engineer sees is of "ones that will work for this cheap company." Indeed, that's one argument that critics repeat often: What employers can't find are young software engineers willing to work 60-hour weeks for $40,000. Pay them $60,600 (our 1997 median) or higher, and watch the resumes flow in.

Robert Rivers, editor of Engineering Manpower newsletter, defines a shortage as 0.3 percent unemployment and sharp spikes in salaries.

Well, 4.5 percent of our readers said they were unemployed at some point in the past year. That's very high. Rivers estimated EE unemployment at about 0.7 percent in the second quarter. However, the EE Times figure doesn't mean those respondents are unemployed now. And we didn't factor out those who voluntarily sat on the sidelines for a few months of R&R.

As for salaries: The overall mean moved up a modest $2,300 overall. And those supposedly in-demand software engineers experienced only a 2 percent rise in base pay. If they're in such short supply, then where's the money?

"No shortage," concludes a principal engineer from Maryland. "Just an unwillingness by companies to pay for needed talent."

Altogether, 85 readers accepted new jobs in the past year, or about 12.7 percent of the sample. Turnover among engineers runs anywhere from 8 to 20 percent, depending on location and type of engineer. Software people in the West, for instance, churn through jobs like a mower through grass.

The American Electronics Association's 1996 Benchmark Compensation Survey reported a 16 percent average turnover for exempt employees. The West Coast rate runs about 3 percentage points higher than the Northeast's, probably because there are such dense populations of engineering employers in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and San Diego. EEs can find a new position right down the street.

EE Times respondents have worked for their present employe r for 7.9 years. That's lower than last year, when the mean was 8.1 years, but this statistic varies considerably from year to year. In 1988, the average tenure was 9.4 years, but in 1990 it slid to 7.1, then went back up again. The number of employers respondents have worked for has remained much the same: two plus change.

EEs feel relatively secure about their jobs in 1997. In contrast to 1993, a peak downsizing year for engineering (when just 27 percent felt secure), the 1997 survey uncovers a much more relaxed readership, with 46 percent believing their jobs secure. The respondents who checked "not secure" dropped in half: from 22 percent in 1993 to 11 percent today.

Engineers' 1997 optimism really shows up in a follow-up question: "In the past year, how have your feelings about your job security changed?" In 1997, 28 percent grew more nervous; four years ago, 51 percent felt less secure. No wonder. That was the period when employers were trumpeting a warning that no one is guaranteed a job, t hat we're all to think of our careers as a private business. We hear less of that talk today, though it may be just as true.

Our most insecure respondents? Technical directors. Being on the firing line of decision making can do that to top managers.

A key indication of the more relaxed attitudes engineers have about their jobs is our annual career-issues list. For nine years-since the 1989 survey-"job security/job market/unemployment" has headed the list. As their employers shelved thousands of engineers and managers, and talked of outsourcing inside functions, EEs looked over their shoulders, wondering where the next blow would
come from.

Today, engineers place "job security" second, behind "salaries," the chief concern of the 1980s. It's quite a sea change. Only last year, 31.7 percent of the respondents cited job security as the principal career issue.

In 1997, salaries still absorb the attention of 22.1 percent of the sample, but job security plunged by 10.6 percentage points, t o 21.1 percent. That's still the second-highest-ranking career issue, but it's a dramatic (and welcome, at least to engineers) fall.

Peggy G. Hutcheson, who heads the Atlanta career counseling firm The Odyssey Group, interprets this data as reflecting a change in attitudes by engineers.

"One. The job market is good. People are seeing things more hopefully," says Hutcheson, who is a frequent contributor to the IEEE Careers Conference. "So even if there is a layoff, they see more options than in the past."

Second, she says, "People have made the psychological transition on the way the job market works these days." Losing a job due to corporate downsizing or re-engineering is "not the deep emotional issue it was." Job movement, she says, has become "an accepted part of reality."

Hutcheson still sees "some anger" at client sites when a layoff occurs (and they still do happen: 35 percent of respondents report downsiz ing by their companies in the past year). "But we're finding that people are saying, 'OK, how do I deal with it?' "

Of more concern to engineers, says Hutcheson, is how to stay ahead on technical skills. Indeed, "technological obsolescence" and "education" show up fourth and fifth as "Top Career Issues."

Does the declining status of "job security" in our survey indicate that it's becoming a non-issue? "Absolutely not," declares Hutcheson. "I believe the job-market situation [of the early '90s] can re-emerge." Having adopted downsizing as a viable option, corporations aren't likely to abandon it should the economy head south again.

But, says Hutcheson, we're all better prepared for dealing with any employment changes. No longer do we expect jobs for life at our companies.

Actually, now the shoe is on the other foot, says Hutcheson. Now it's the companies that sweat over losing valuable engineers in this volatile seller's market. They're asking, "How can we remain competitive?"

Besides salaries (No. 1) and job security (No. 2), here are other career issues cited by our readers:

3. Work/life balance, which 20.6 percent named their chief issue. This is a new entry to our list. For a full discussion, see the related story in this chapter.

4. Technological obsolescence, cited by 17.6 percent.

5. Education (retraining), named by 10 percent of the sample.

Trailing behind, in order of ranking, were pension rights, age discrimination, professional ethics and engineers' image (which tied for No. 8) and foreign competition.

There was a time, by the way, when "foreign competition" scored much higher on our career-issues list. It was 1988, when the Japanese threatened to eat our lunch. Times have changed.

Is anyone finding a job on the Web? And do those huge job fairs really lead to employment?

Our 679 readers offer a mixed picture. Of the 85 who got new jobs in 1996-97, 13 found those jobs on the Net. Another 11 readers credit job fairs for their new occ upations.

Is this good or bad? Internet job-site people think those numbers are pretty good for such a new service. Basically, the first job sites appeared in 1992. And job-fair organizers say that having 15 percent of those who accepted new jobs is an effective percentage of the total. (We assume the others who found jobs went by more standard routes: newspaper ads, word of mouth, employee referrals, etc.).

Truth is, no one is absolutely sure how many jobs any one recruitment method leads to. Bernard Hodes Advertising, one of the biggest recruitment ad agencies in the United States and operator of the employment Web site CareerMosaic, points out that the advertisers-in whatever medium-rarely report back the results of any campaign.

Companies at job fairs, for instance, often measure success on the basis of how many resumes they collect. Names are fed into a database that may not be officially accessed until months later, when an opening appears that fits the bill.

For sure, EEs and ma nagers are scanning the Web for jobs: 39 percent admit they searched the Internet for employment opportunities in the past 12 months.

• IEEE's Job Listing Service ( www.ieee.org ): 40 percent. This engineering-specific site, which has catered mostly to more senior-level engineers, is adding an entry-level segment soon.
  
• CareerMosaic: 32.4 percent. This is a general job hub that features dozens of engineering employers, including Atmel, Lockheed Martin and Rockwell Semiconductor Systems. CareerMosaic's "J.O.B.S." database is directly linked to the EE Times home page.
  
• Other: 29 percent. These include any number of corporate home pages that feature employment opportunities, as well as other job sites. TechWeb Careers: 24 percent. The job site of EE Times 's parent corporation, CMP Media ( techweb.cmp.com ), offers a variety of positions-mostly technical, but not all engineering.
  
• Monster Board: 24 percent. Very popular competitor to CareerMosaic a s a general job site.
  
• E.span: 6.5 percent. One of the first job boards on the Internet.
  

Richard Riddle, chair of the IEEE-USA Employment Assistance Committee, attributes the popularity of the IEEE Job Listing Service to its specialized nature. Most jobs are for EEs and computer scientists, as well as engineering educators. Riddle said the site is being improved, with a job-search engine to be added by the end of the year.

Though 261 engineers and managers skimmed the job boards on the Net in 1996-97, most were apparently casual visitors. Only 46 readers posted a resume on the Internet, a service now offered by most job boards and corporate employment sites.

As you might suspect, using the Internet to look for a job correlates to some degree with age. Engineers over the age of 55 rarely searched for a job electronically. But 40 to 50 percent of engineers in their 20s, 30s and 40s tapped into cyberspace.

Past surveys indicate that the recruiters' best tool in luring engineers to their companies was "challenging assignments." Engineers love a technical challenge. Go to Mars; develop a faster chip; condense a system; design a wireless pager. Challenge is what makes the job fun.

But let's not kid ourselves. Job searchers repeat the refrain from the movie Jerry Maguire : "Show me the money." Some 75 percent of the respondents cite a boost in their base salaries as "very appealing."

Second in appeal: bonuses. About 35 percent of those accepting new jobs in the past 12 months received signing bonuses, up from 28 percent last year.

Close to half of those bonuses tallied more than $5,000. The bonus babies tended to be engineers with deep-submicron, ASIC or network design skills, all hot job categories.

In this tight job market, recruiters have been waving other tempting inducements at candidates as well. Housing allowances, moving expenses and jobs for spouses are not unusual.

Besides money, other "very appealing" factors that might tempt our readers to switch:

• Stock options, cited by 50 percent of the sample.
  
• Better benefits, noted by 40 percent.
  

Only a quarter of the survey sample finds a title change or promotion "very appealing."

More than half the respondents report that their employers offer stock-purchase plans for their workers. Under these plans, employees can arrange-sometimes through a payroll plan-to buy stock in the company at market price or possibly at a discount. With the stock market now in its third year of double-digit growth and most electronics companies doing well, such

plans give many engineers an entree into our "Six-Figure Club" (see "Salary" chapter).

How much stock do respondents own? Over half have less than $10,000 invested in their employer's stock; another quarter have between $10,000 and $50,000, and 7.2 percent have up to $100,000. Another 10 percent have even more significant s takes-above $100,000-and they're not all owners and presidents. Seven of the 35 in this category are senior engineers and four are principal engineers.

It's not that difficult to hit that goal if you have a monthly purchase plan. Looking at stock prices for several companies as of late July, here's what it would take to reach the Six-Figure Club:

• Just over 1,200 shares of Motorola ($80 a share).
  
• Just over 1,100 shares of Medtronics ($89).
  
• Around 1,200 shares of Dell Computer ($82).
  

Of course, if you picked Apple Computer before its 16 percent drop to $17, you'd be farther away than when you started.

Even more lucrative than shares are stock options. Plans vary from company to company, but basically, they allow employees to buy stock at a pre-set price for a specific amount of time. If you joined a company in 1993 and received options to buy at $19, you can continue to purchase that stock at $19 for a certain amount of time, even if it goes up. U sually, you have to be at the company for a specified number of years before you can cash in. That's why chairmen complain that their pay packages look wildly inflated. They may never get to cash in those options if they're dismissed early.

Under stock plans, of course, anyone can buy into publicly traded companies. Option plans are less widely available; 38 percent of our respondents own stock options in their companies, vs. the 52 percent with stock plans. Half the respondents rate companies "poor" on availability of stock options

for employees. This includes engineers working for privately held companies, consultants and, more importantly, the 11 percent who work for foreign-owned companies.

As expected, our corporate-level executives routinely report owning options. Below the level of technical director, the representation is more spotty. At 44 percent, many senior engineers enjoy options (worth about $26,500 on average). But only a quarter of the project engineers do. At a time when retenti on of good employees is essential, many larger electronics and semiconductor firms-such as Intel Corp.-offer options to all employees, from secretaries to chairmen. With Intel shares worth about $90 in July (after a split at $150+), the stock-options program has effectively clamped golden handcuffs on engineers who might have had ideas about moving on. Staying put can lead to a big payoff later.

What's the worth of those options? As with stock plans, more than half estimate the worth of their options at under $10,000. Just under a quarter fall between $10,000 and $50,000; 8.5 percent are between $50,000 and $100,000; and 14.2 percent report options worth more than $100,000.

Recruiters say many engineers today are willing to sacrifice some base pay in exchange for a stake in the company. Options are a time-honored recruitment tool for startups.

Incidentally, our Japanese engineering respondents have less opportunity to be shareholders. Some 59 percent say their employers do not offer stock-pu rchase plans, and 75 percent do not own options in their company.

We ask this question every year, and every year readers confirm: Yes, the design cycle is shrinking. If it shrank as much as readers claimed, they'd be working on tomorrow's project today.

Nevertheless, for yet another year, two-thirds of the survey affirm a shorter design cycle for their projects. In most surveys, some 50 percent said their cycle was under a year. This year, we sliced that orange a little thinner by allowing answers in terms of months. The response was revealing.

Length of last design cycle:

• Under six months: 26 percent
  
• Six to eight months: 17 percent
  
• Nine to 12 months: 23 percent
  

Six out of 10 engineers and managers worked on projects lasting under one year. That's consistent with the findings of a study soon to be released by the product-development consulting firm of Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath (PRTM; Boston).

Mike Anthony, director at PRTM, s aid the typical product-development time at electronics companies the firm has studied is between nine and 12 months. He thinks our six-month response of 26 percent appears rather large, but offers a possible explanation.

The engineers might have been working on "spin-offs"-that is, a product update-rather than a project built from the ground up. For a major product, such as a new laptop computer, the typical design time is about 12 months.

Anthony said computer and electronic-systems companies typically tackle two major platforms a year, spinning off 15 to 20 other products from each of them.

The mean design-cycle time for the 600-odd engineers and managers in the EE Times study was about 101/2 months, consistent with PRTM's findings. Anthony said PRTM will be releasing a "major study" on product development of electronics companies in the near future.

With deadlines growing tighter, eight out of 10 engineers in both the United States and Japan experienced delays in their proj ects over the past year. No matter how many new software packages come out, no matter how fast the new testers, no matter what management strategies are adopted, 80 percent of the projects that engineers work on are late. In some cases, very late: 21 percent of the U.S. engineers and 30 percent of the Japanese said they were more than 90 days behind.

First and foremost are technical glitches. Nearly three-quarters of the Japanese EEs and 56 percent of the Americans blame technical problems. If engineers push the envelope on product development, then there's a certain inevitability that somewhere down the road the lines will cross, testers will crash or software will collide.

"Purchased software did not perform as advertised/specified," one senior engineer recalls.

Second, one-third of the engineers finger the customers. They keep changing specifications. Multifunctional, multicompany teams were supposed to solve such problems, but those types of teams remain in the minority. Next comes chan ges made by management. "Bad planning by program manager" caused one design engineer a delay of more than 60 days.

As in past years, the Japanese and American engineers diverge on this point. A change of heart by managers is not an issue in Japan, where only 12 percent of the Nikkei Electronics readers cited it as a cause of delays. It is a major problem in the United States, where it was cited by 38 percent.

Another divergence: Nearly a quarter of the American engineers blame "other departments" for delaying their projects, vs. 12 percent of the Japanese.

Experts say that the Japanese practice consensus management. They may take an agonizingly long time to arrive at a decision as they collect opinions from a variety of sources, but once the decision is made, they stick with it. In the United States, a lot of the decision making is done by the seat of the pants. That's not necessarily bad. Responding to competition, beta-site testing and new technologies can produce a better product. The key, as always, is to know when to ship.

PRTM's Anthony added another key reason for delays: inadequate staffing. "The capacity of the organization is strained," he said. Corporations cannot launch all the projects they'd like due to their inability to manage staffing properly. Sometimes it's a matter of allocation of the people they have; other times, they can't seem to hire the people they need.

When Anthony visited two Minneapolis firms recently, they complained about their inability to locate enough software engineers to move their projects forward. Again, that dovetails with EE Times 's findings: A razor-thin majority of EEs agree that there is a shortage, and that software engineers are scarce.

More than half of EE Times respondents work with software, with 22 percent identifying themselves as working "primarily" in software. An additional 35 percent consider themselves both hardware and software savvy.

Some 72 percent say they perform hands-on programming and deb ugging, while half also provide specifications or work with software developers. And 52 percent apply their software knowledge to embedded systems. More than one-third of the software savvy work on standalone applications.

More and more engineers and managers are turning to Windows 95 and NT, continuing a trend that showed up in last year's survey.

Eliminating the 43 percent of readers who are hardware purists, 61 percent of the remaining 377 EEs and managers said they use Windows 95 in their work, up from 38 percent in 1996 and 9.2 percent in 1995, the first year the package was available, albeit in beta form. Furthermore, though new versions of the popular software should be ready by 1998-99, some 38 percent expect to be working with Windows 95 two years from now.

Engineers and managers are likewise embracing the more sophisticated NT package. Only 15 percent used NT in 1995; 27 percent in 1996. Today, fully 46 percent use it, and some 55 percent expect to be doing so in two years.

T o no one's surprise, there's been a corresponding drop in the usage of Windows 3.X, from 77 percent in 1995 to 45 percent this year. Many PCs utilized for word processing, testing or simpler business applications continue to use the older versions of Windows.

Incidentally, our Japanese respondents are also Windows fans: 82 percent use Windows 95 and 25 percent are on NT.

On the decline is Macintosh OS, from 16 percent in 1996 to 12 percent this year. And despite a new operating system just released by Apple Computer Inc., only 6 percent of respondents see themselves using Mac OS two years from now.

Usage of DOS decreased from 75 percent in 1996 to 66 percent this year, though, of course, DOS is hidden behind Windows. Two years from now, only approximately 22 percent expect to use DOS in its non-Windowed form.

Also percolating is the Java programming language. Though only 10 percent of respondents call themselves Java-savvy today, they're rubbing their hands in anticipation: 47 percent expect to apply Java in their workplaces within the next two years, providing the software-training industry with plenty of business. The story is much the same in Japan: 4 percent use Java; 30 percent expect to two years from now.

C/C++ usage decline from 77 percent of respondents in 1996 to 72 percent this year, indicating that the reign of C may have peaked.

No one expects C to fade away, but a new generation of programmers may skip C and go straight to Java.

Assembly language also declined, from 49 percent of those surveyed last year to 42 percent this year.

The engineering world revolves around software applications. There's little significant hardware differentiation among our PCs, cellular phones and pagers. Yet hardware engineers are holding fast at 43 percent of the sample this year. They're working on power supplies, switchers and routers, and defense systems. But it's doubtful that the church-and-state separation of the past prevails in today's team-oriented engineering or ganizations.

Happiness on the job holds steady in 1997, as 69 percent of American engineers declare themselves satisfied with their employers and careers. Since 1994, as the economic recovery kicked in, the EE Times "Career Satisfaction Index" hasn't varied by more than three or four percentage points.

The Japanese engineers, by contrast, are less enthusiastic about their work lives. A substantial 24 percent of the Nikkei Electronics respondents call themselves dissatisfied-double the rate for Americans. Just under half are satisfied with career and employer.

Japanese engineers are unlikely to move to another job. In the United States, dissenters are inclined to leave.

Other related Career graphics:

• Seismic shift: Readers spilt on shortages
• Jumping ship: What lures you?
• Owning a piece of your company: Stock distribution, based on job title
• Job security: Readers can relax
• Satisfaction: Career question
• Internet: More use, mixed results
• Winds of change blow in software: A big shift to Windows 95, NT
• U.S. vs. Japan: Working conditions

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