Engineering Inc. - November/December 2008 - (Page 16)

Winning the By alan Joch WaR Retaining top-notch employees a priority amid today’s shrinking talent pool or many years, the easiest way to bring top-tier talent into a firm was to entice it away from another firm. In today’s tight economic times, that option has become more difficult. Experienced engineers are choosing to stay with their current employers, preferring the security of a known entity to the unknown but potentially higher rewards of starting anew. At the same time, the flow of new engineers coming into the industry has slowed to a trickle. Engineering firms today find themselves stuck in the middle. Firms need to boost their staff talent but they have few directions to turn. Except inward. Increasingly, firms are putting their focus on improving and upgrading current staffs, adding experienced and new engineers only when those opportunities arise. “When people get to be experienced engineers, project managers, or start managing teams,” says Ed Barrett, director of human resources at Howard R. Green Co., an engineering firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 16 ENGINEERING INC. NovEmbER / DECEmbER 2008 alenT “companies are doing whatever they can to try to lock them up.” Locking up the talent for the long term has become the prime objective, because while these tough economic times won’t last, all indications suggest that the shortage of qualified engineers in the immediate future could drag on for years. Between a Rock and a Hard Place F Engineering industry employment is being pulled from both ends of the demographic spectrum. On the one hand, with a wave of baby boomers expected to leave the work force soon, the pool of experienced engineers in all sectors—from bridge design to highways to water infrastructure—is running dry. One in four of all current science and engineering (S&E) degree holders in the labor force are 50 or older, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF). Among S&E doctorate holders in the labor force, 40 percent are age 50 or over. Statistics also show that by age 62, more than half of all S&E bachelor’s degree holders in the work force leave full-time employment. “The situation is likely to get worse, and that’s simply the effect of demographic changes,” says Barrett. “Older engineers are retiring, and they’re not being replaced fast enough because we’re not graduating enough engineers to replace them.” That’s the other hand. NSF data also shows that between 1980 and 2000, the total number of S&E degrees earned grew at an average annual rate of 1.5 percent, which was faster than labor force growth, but less than the 4.2 percent growth of S&E occupations, or the need for current engineers.

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Engineering Inc. - September/October 2008 Contents From ACEC to You News & Notes Market Watch Legislative Action Engineering Goes Back to School Winning the Talent War Mastering A Hard-Luck Economy Education Makes the Grade in Green Construction 2008 Young Professionals of the Year 2008 Fall Conference Highlights Technology Members in the News One On One

Engineering Inc. - November/December 2008

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