Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Engineering Gap...

This is good news....From BusinessWeek On-Line. (Read more)

One would expect that the numbers used in such debate would be defensible and grounded. Yet researchers at Duke University have determined that some of the most cited statistics on engineering graduates are inaccurate. Statistics that say the U.S. is producing 70,000 engineers a year vs. 350,000 from India and 600,000 from China aren't valid, the Duke team says. We're actually graduating more engineers than India, and the Chinese numbers aren't quite what they seem. In short, America is far ahead by almost any measure, and we're a long way from losing our edge.

Unfortunately, the message students are getting is that many engineering jobs will be outsourced and U.S. engineers have a bleak future of higher unemployment and lower remuneration. This could result in a self-fulfilling prophecy, as fearful young scholars stick to supposedly "outsourcing-proof" professions. In other words, we have more to fear from fear itself.