For most of you veterans, the answer, of course, turned out to be "yes" for the first question. But possibly "no" to the second. Most likely, if the downsizing of the early '90s didn't force you to move to another position, you eventually migrated to an even better job, one that is significantly different than in 1992. In our current survey, you claim to be more satisfied with your career, happier with your company and wealthier than you were at the beginning of the Clinton years. Your projects are less military-oriented, and more communications-driven, your company is razor-sharp-focused on specific markets and, of course, the technologies you're employing are substantially different, though not necessarily cutting edge.

One of the biggest transformations you've probably undergone in the past eight years is attitude toward your career. While many still aspire to climb the corporate ladder, the surge in entrepreneurism (i.e., the dot-com startup phenomenon) and independence has created engineers who are willing to take more chances on their own and take charge of their own careers. The downsizing wave of the late '80s and early '90s left a permanent mark on employees, especially the once-secure engineering profession. No longer will EEs assume they've got a job for life. Those of you under 30 probably consider that notion of lifetime employment quaint or archaic. But a decade ago, when IBM started letting thousands of its people go, it made the front pages. IBM was one of the last bastions of corporate parochialism.

Let's review, briefly, the engineering career headlines of 1992. National unemployment figures for engineers hit 3.1 percent in August 1992, at a time when 7.7 percent of the nation's people lacked jobs. So engineers were faring better than other professionals were. But the worst was yet to come. Joblessness among EEs later climbed to as high as 6 percent, particularly as more defense contractors scaled down their work forces. The IEEE's then-president Merrill Buckley described the top three engineering issues of the day as "Jobs, jobs, jobs."

Compare that to today. It's a complete flip-flop. Once the top career issue, EE unemployment fell to sixth place among career issues in this year's survey. Understandable, considering that EE joblessness has dipped to record lows recently, below 1 percent in some months. In 2000, several managers tell us their toughest career issue is their inability to recruit enough good engineers. The Labor Department estimates national unemployment at 4.1 percent, about 3.6 percentage points lower than in 1992. And it's been like this for several years now as the United States continues its record stretch of economic growth.

More than half our American respondents in 1992 reported layoffs at their immediate workplaces in the past 12 months. Sixty percent said their companies had downsized. And nearly a third reported not feeling secure in their jobs. Today? Only 16 percent of this year's EEs saw layoffs at their workplaces, while 28 percent reported downsizing somewhere in their companies-perhaps at other sites.

Both figures are way, way down from 1992's data to be sure, but some might wonder why downsizing still happens at engineering companies at all. The reason is restructuring and reconfiguring. American Management Association surveys of corporations found many simultaneously laying off and hiring people, despite economic prosperity.

That may not be nice but it's business reality. Corporations are less willing to retrain people to assume new jobs. They don't want to take a hardware engineer and turn him into a database coordinator. And to satisfy Wall Street expectations of rising profits, many corporations will furlough people from nonstrategic positions. Generally, engineers are considered strategic-at least in engineering-oriented companies. But they learned in 1992 that they're not immune from profit pressures and market changes.

In later EE Times "Salary & Opinion" surveys, some nine out of 10 acknowledged that they-not the companies-were responsible for their careers.

Well . . . what goes around, comes around. Now the companies gripe about the lack of loyalty in employees. As one technical director moans in this year's survey, "(I) can't find qualified engineers to hire."

Engineers took charge of their careers by acquiring new skills and finding new jobs. And as we'll find out in the next chapter on "The Way We Work," they became shrewder business partners. Engineers understand the need to communicate both inside and outside of the company, and the need for business skills to supplement their technical expertise. The lessons of the '90s were clear: Technical skills alone won't save you. The company isn't a lovable uncle. And the best way to get ahead is to grow-ideally within the company, but if not, then at another workplace.

In reality, job turnover isn't all that bad among this year's engineers and managers. On average, they've held 2.7 jobs in their careers, only half a "job" up from the 2.2 average of 1992. If we round it off, then it is three jobs vs. the two jobs of eight years ago. What we can't tell from that figure is whether the turnover was forced by the employers or whether it reflects the anecdotal reports of job hopping by engineers, especially the youngest, most in-demand ones with ASIC design skills, software savvy and deep-submi-cron experience. Yet, although turnover is most prevalent earlier in an engineer's career, one-third of the under-35 engineers have never had another employer. And just over 21 percent have changed employers once.

In 1992, engineers reported being at their current employer for 8.5 years, vs. 8.8 years reported in the 2000 survey. However, those are means, or averages. If we look at this year's numbers as a median-where half the sample is above or below-the length of stay of an engineer or manager has been five years. That indicates that we have some long-timers skewing the means, and more people moving around than it appears at first glance.

Engineers in the military/ aerospace world have stayed put the longest-about 13 years-while EEs in the communications field have worked at their employers for a bit more than six years. This is not unexpected; military/aerospace engineers work for huge corporations in a field where mergers and convergence have left fewer options for moving to another employer. Communications has been one of the hottest recruitment areas since the mid-1990s and has brought in a lot of new talent.

By contrast, the Japanese engineers responding to the 2000 Nikkei Electronics survey have stayed with their employer more than 11 years, and two-thirds have never had another employer.

Corporations have changed since 1992, along with the people they employ. And for the better, according to our respondents. Just over 82 percent declare their companies to be "a good place to work," an improvement over 1992's 75 percent. Much of that has to be attributed to the more stable employment picture, but the workplace is going through another kind of turbulence: the buying, selling, merging, spinning off and adding on of divisions, other companies and product lines.

Here's one astonishing piece of data: 48 percent of this year's respondents reported their employer buying another company. The activity has been frantic among companies in hot growth areas like networking and fiber optics.

Cisco Systems and JDS Uniphase have bought several companies in the past year. What those companies are doing is more than staking out a bigger piece of their market.

Joseph O'Donnell, chief executive officer of power conversion producer Artesyn Technologies Inc. (Boca Raton, Fla.), said a key reason his company bought Azcore Technologies (Tucson, Ariz.) was time-to-market. Because Azcore had a vital dc/dc converter line ready to hit the market, Artesyn figures it saved 12 to 18 months over developing a similar line itself. With time-to-market such a vital component to success, every month a company gains by introducing a product into a hot sector can mean more market share.

At the same time, Artesyn gained expertise and a new design center, meaning no jobs were lost in the transaction.

In addition to the respondents whose companies bought others, 11 percent reported their company sold. And 31 percent of our respondents' corporations added new divisions, while 26 percent sold off a division.

More than one-third of employers started new product development programs (while only 16 percent cut back), and 36 percent hired more workers (but 25 percent trimmed back hiring plans). So the 16 percent who saw layoffs happening around them probably were in companies that had been taken over or restructured.

In Japan, the picture is different. Just 16 percent of the respondents' employers participated in a merger or acquisition, but more than half reported "fewer new hires" at their workplaces, indicating Japan's economic malaise isn't over yet. Japan's economy grew by less than 2 percent in the past year, vs. growth of more than 5 percent in the United States.

With job security/unemployment falling from first place in 1992 to sixth place in 2000, salary became the top career issue for American engineers.

Actually, this is a perennial first- or second-place finisher, even this year, with EEs getting the highest annual raise ever. While some engineers think themselves underpaid, salaries are also a strategic matter.

"This company offers exciting and challenging work for engineers," writes a software engineer. But "it lacks the financial incentives and rewards of newer, more employee-focused companies. This has caused many to leave for greener pastures elsewhere."

Indeed, companies have to stay competitive in terms of salaries and bonuses if they hope to retain engineers in a high-demand environment. Foreign-based companies, for instance, have difficulties recruiting American engineers for their Valley-based subsidiaries because many can't offer stock options that have become so common for U.S. companies.

In Japan, the unemployment situation has changed significantly from 1992. Whereas Japanese engineers could once count on staying with one company all their work lives, today 24 percent are "very concerned" about job security and 48 percent are "somewhat concerned." Japan Inc. has been doing the unthinkable-letting employees go in an attempt to become more competitive.

Beyond the addition of work/life balance issues, career issues don't vary significantly from the 1992 list, except for the current EEs downgrading "foreign competition" to tenth place from fifth in 1992. In fact, when asked back then what the top issue was for the U.S. electronics industry as a whole, EEs ranked foreign competition first.

Today's EEs don't dwell on foreign competition. It's a fact of life. One reason for the more relaxed outlook may be that the United States' predominance in semiconductors, software and networking ensures that it has a substantial edge in technology vs. Japan and Europe. Another reason may be a change in attitude. We've all become more global. Our companies are less and less pure plays. American components companies report half their sales coming from Asia; Texas computer companies design in America, build PCs in Taiwan and develop software in India. Chrysler Corp. is run by Germans; Jaguar is owned by Detroit-based Ford Motor Co. Thousands of Americans depend on Finland-based Nokia for jobs.

The "Buy American" sentiment hasn't disappeared, though. When the Senate recently approved a trade agreement with China, labor unions revived the concern that U.S. jobs could disappear if it becomes easier for American businesses to set up shop in low-paying China. This year's EE respondents certainly have a stake in protecting their jobs, but they've apparently accepted the premise that free trade generates more jobs than protective measures. Only 16 percent describe themselves as "very concerned" about foreign competition.

Many recognized the trend early, as this 1992 reader did: "We have to watch what we say about each other. Who knows where your next customer may come from?"

As a group though,the respondents would rather focus on ethics, technical obsolescence and education, along with salaries and work/life balance.

In Japan, the top issues are salaries, technical obsolescence and work/life balance, along with job security and unemployment.

Last year's "Salary & Opinion Survey" was the first in which we asked responding design and development engineers and managers to rate their companies and careers on a series of statements on a scale ranging from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly."

The highest rating was the 93 percent who "agreed strongly" or "agreed somewhat" with the statement,"I have free access to the Internet." Companies have acknowledged the Internet's value in providing information and products for engineers (see our chapter on the Internet, later in this report). However, one reader who "disagreed somewhat" offered this note of caution: "The Internet is monitored. People fired for abusing Internet privileges." Courts have upheld the right of employers to track use of the Internet on company time.

Some 86 percent tell us they're satisfied with their careers, 82 percent approve of their companies as a good place to work and 80 percent would recommend engineering as a career for their kids. The youngest engineers, especially, offer the highest endorsements, with 86 percent ready to lead little Johnny or Melinda into the profession.

One prevailing pattern does emerge. The military/aerospace engineers are less enthusiastic about their companies, the technical expertise they see around them and the way their employers treat them.

About one-third of the mil/aero people don't agree with the statement, "My company respects engineers," compared with 25 percent of the rest of the sample, and 73 percent think their company is "a good place to work," vs. 82 percent of everyone else.

A chief engineer for a military/aerospace contractor offers this explanation: "Sometimes feel unappreciated. Need more challenge other than the speed at which work must be done."

He said he has no performance bonus, no stock options and no stock purchase plan. We don't know for which contractor he works (we don't ask for specifics), but many corporations in the commercial arena have boosted their benefits and incentives plans to make their people feel like they're sharing in the corporation's success.

The Japanese respondents agree with Americans that they have free access to the Internet and can disagree with their bosses, but most disagree that their companies reward engineers for their innovations. And more than 50 percent would not endorse engineering as a career to their kids.

Finally, here's a breakdown of the incentives that our American respondents reported at their workplaces.:

• New-employee signing bonus: 32 percent.
• Performance-related bonus: 48 percent.
• Profit-sharing plans: 37 percent.
• Stock plan: 25 percent.