Is a Chinese Engineer Glut Coming?

[Kevin B.]

I have a young relative who is considering an engineering career, and his
friend is telling him to stay away from it.

The friend's reasoning is that China is about to do to engineering what
India did to info tech in the early 2000's: bring demand for North American
and European graduates way down, with a combination of outsourcing, low
exchange rates, and a huge surplus of talented people.

Once China's modernization is basically complete, Chinese domestic demand
for engineers will drop sharply, and China will experience a brain drain to
the rest of the world. Chinese engineers will have the kind of experience
that can't be beat: the experience of turning a large poor backward country
into a large rich modern country.

What are your thoughts on this speculation? Is there ground for concern?

 

[TKM]

It depends on the kind of engineering your relative wants to get into.
Many engineers have to be on-site for projects so it's more cost-effective
to have one from close-by than one from overseas and so there's less
danger of losing jobs to China.

Engineering is not like the IT or programming industries. Those jobs can
be done from almost anywhere there's a phone.

The best advice to give is to follow your heart - if engineering is what's
in your relative's heart, then that's what he should do. If all he's
looking for is the best way to make money, then he could have better
success elsewhere.

I agree. If you think of engineering services as a commodity, then at some
point there will be more engineers than the need for them (example: U.S.
Space Program in the 1980s).

If, however, the engineer knows more than the minimum required and is
flexible, inspired and passionate, there's always a market somewhere. I've
also found communication skills to be essential since that allows engineers
to go back and forth between engineering and technical marketing or sales
and the need for marketing/sales people never disappears.

Terry McGowan

 

[dutchboy2]

I have a young relative who is considering an engineering career, and his
friend is telling him to stay away from it.

The friend's reasoning is that China is about to do to engineering what
India did to info tech in the early 2000's: bring demand for North American
and European graduates way down, with a combination of outsourcing, low
exchange rates, and a huge surplus of talented people.

Once China's modernization is basically complete, Chinese domestic demand
for engineers will drop sharply, and China will experience a brain drain to
the rest of the world. Chinese engineers will have the kind of experience
that can't be beat: the experience of turning a large poor backward country
into a large rich modern country.

What are your thoughts on this speculation? Is there ground for concern?

The words Chinese and engineer should never be used in one sentence.
What Chinese call an engineer really means technician. These guys are
only a threat to themselves since they cannot apply principle
engineering to applications without a bevy of Western consultants to set
the problems up for them. Copying is all they do well, everything else
comes from the West. Don't even get me started on Chinese innovation.
Even the stupid and profanely ugly structures, such as the Beijing Water
Cube had to rely on Western Innovation and engineering, what a joke! Oh
yeah, this is the land where the "Emperor's New Clothes" story originated.

 

[[email protected]]

The words Chinese and engineer should never be used in one sentence.
What Chinese call an engineer really means technician. These guys are
only a threat to themselves since they cannot apply principle
engineering to applications without a bevy of Western consultants to set
the problems up for them. Copying is all they do well, everything else
comes from the West. Don't even get me started on Chinese innovation.
Even the stupid and profanely ugly structures, such as the Beijing Water
Cube had to rely on Western Innovation and engineering, what a joke! Oh
yeah, this is the land where the "Emperor's New Clothes" story originated.

"All they know how to do is copy designs" "They are not any good at innovation or free thinking problem
solving" "They only know how to build cheap tinny low quality products" "They are no good when they have to
create, they can only immitate" Chinese? Hardly. This is a sample of the kind of stereotypes that were laid
on the Japanese from kust after the end of WWII until the late 1950's or early 1960's. It is interesting to
note that the Japanese have consistantly exceeded the Ubited States in the number of patents issued for almost
ten years now, made a viable product of the Wankle engine design that won the Lemans 24 hour endurance race,
and have dominated formula one racing engine development (Honda), as well as being home to the worlds largest
car producer (Toyota). Maybe a more accurate accessment of your view of the Chinese, similar to what used to
be said of the Japanese is "They started where we left off, copying initially until they came up to speed with
they're own technology development capability". The Chinese are easily in the top five in rocket,space
technology, with an advanced program to land on the moon. They are also quietly developing 4th and 5th
generation stealth technology and have flying prototypes currently. Look inside any PC, regardless of the
brand name on the outside of the box (IBM, HP, Dell, etc.) an overwhelming percentage of the insides of these
machines are now developed and manufactured in Tiawan. IBM now has Hitachi develop and manufacture the hard
drives and the Japanese have owned the memory chip business since shortly after the introduction of the first
PC's. Fundamentaly, any country or company with enough resources (People and money) can eventually become
leaders in a specific area of technology as long as they outpace their competition in terms of the amount of
resources they choose to apply to that area of focus. However, assigning stereotypes to these efforts that
imply that the upcoming competitive challenges are somehow "not as good as us", or "they can only do this" is
certainly soothing to the ego's of those who are the current leaders at that point in time but not reality as
evidenced by historical record. Interestingly enough, the Japanese, now often praised for the ability to
produce world class quality in their products, have an award presented annually to the country's most
effective producer of the highest quality products. This award, the highest regarded quality acheivement
award in Japan, is called the Demming Award, named after an American, Edwards Demming. What goes around comes
around, regards, Joe.
[email protected]

 

[dutchboy2]

"All they know how to do is copy designs" "They are not any good at innovation or free thinking problem
solving" "They only know how to build cheap tinny low quality products" "They are no good when they have to
create, they can only immitate" Chinese? Hardly. This is a sample of the kind of stereotypes that were laid
on the Japanese from kust after the end of WWII until the late 1950's or early 1960's. It is interesting to
note that the Japanese have consistantly exceeded the Ubited States in the number of patents issued for almost
ten years now, made a viable product of the Wankle engine design that won the Lemans 24 hour endurance race,
and have dominated formula one racing engine development (Honda), as well as being home to the worlds largest
car producer (Toyota). Maybe a more accurate accessment of your view of the Chinese, similar to what used to
be said of the Japanese is "They started where we left off, copying initially until they came up to speed with
they're own technology development capability". The Chinese are easily in the top five in rocket,space
technology, with an advanced program to land on the moon. They are also quietly developing 4th and 5th
generation stealth technology and have flying prototypes currently. Look inside any PC, regardless of the
brand name on the outside of the box (IBM, HP, Dell, etc.) an overwhelming percentage of the insides of these
machines are now developed and manufactured in Tiawan. IBM now has Hitachi develop and manufacture the hard
drives and the Japanese have owned the memory chip business since shortly after the introduction of the first
PC's. Fundamentaly, any country or company with enough resources (People and money) can eventually become
leaders in a specific area of technology as long as they outpace their competition in terms of the amount of
resources they choose to apply to that area of focus. However, assigning stereotypes to these efforts that
imply that the upcoming competitive challenges are somehow "not as good as us", or "they can only do this" is
certainly soothing to the ego's of those who are the current leaders at that point in time but not reality as
evidenced by historical record. Interestingly enough, the Japanese, now often praised for the ability to
produce world class quality in their products, have an award presented annually to the country's most
effective producer of the highest quality products. This award, the highest regarded quality acheivement
award in Japan, is called the Demming Award, named after an American, Edwards Demming. What goes around comes
around, regards, Joe.
[email protected]

You sound so politically correct. Before living and working in Hong Kong
and China for the last 5 years, I might have spewed the same rhetoric. I
absolutely stand by my initial statements. You need to study the
teachings of Confucian thinking to understand why it is the way it is.
Robust engineering solutions stem from out of the box thinking and this
simply goes against Eastern cultural heritage. So then, be proud to be
an American engineer and fear not the Chinese for they place no value on
innovation and treat it as a commodity which they can simply buy from
the West. We have the best engineers, schools and a track record
unmatched by any country so hold it in high esteem. Creativity stems
from abstract thought it cannot be distilled into reality by rigorous
repetitive exercises like the Chinese educational style. Even the
Chinese who have studied at first rate technical schools in the US
simply don't get it when it comes to innovation. They need us and we
need them to produce our designs I would encourage young engineer
hopefuls enrolled in US schools to take up any challenge and kick some
butt on the Chinese and Indians. In this regard, globalization is plain
wrong. The US needs to keep in front, just like we have always been in
all things technical and scientific. Everything you cite as cogent
examples stem from US innovation and the rationale is rooted in
economics. Come on over and spend some time in China and India then you
will see how the needle is threaded.

 

[TKM]

You sound so politically correct. Before living and working in Hong Kong
and China for the last 5 years, I might have spewed the same rhetoric. I
absolutely stand by my initial statements. You need to study the
teachings of Confucian thinking to understand why it is the way it is.
Robust engineering solutions stem from out of the box thinking and this
simply goes against Eastern cultural heritage. So then, be proud to be
an American engineer and fear not the Chinese for they place no value on
innovation and treat it as a commodity which they can simply buy from
the West. We have the best engineers, schools and a track record
unmatched by any country so hold it in high esteem. Creativity stems
from abstract thought it cannot be distilled into reality by rigorous
repetitive exercises like the Chinese educational style. Even the
Chinese who have studied at first rate technical schools in the US
simply don't get it when it comes to innovation. They need us and we
need them to produce our designs I would encourage young engineer
hopefuls enrolled in US schools to take up any challenge and kick some
butt on the Chinese and Indians. In this regard, globalization is plain
wrong. The US needs to keep in front, just like we have always been in
all things technical and scientific. Everything you cite as cogent
examples stem from US innovation and the rationale is rooted in
economics. Come on over and spend some time in China and India then you
will see how the needle is threaded.

What a load of crap. I hear the same here, living in Mexico, that
it's barely a service economy, or that you can't outsource thinking to
Mexico, but it is total crap. Sure, both China and Mexico are behind
in their education relative to the States at the moment, but but
people here are incredibly hungry to learn and to improve. At this
stage in Mexico, it is mainly management style which is holding back
the country's young innovators, but that will change, it's a
generational thing at worst. My team is a group of some of the most
talented, creative rigorous designers and analysts in my industry.

When it comes to China, confuscious never told people not to think,
quite the reverse and if you look at it, there are already some of the
most innovative engineering companies in the world coming out of China
and Taiwan (we should include Taiwan here, as it has largely common
heritage with China). HTC, for example, out of Taiwan or Suntech
Power, whose solar tech is amongst the best in the world and more
importantly, is actually fully commercialized.

In China, for forty years, sticking your head up was not the smartest
thing for a comfortable life, so it didn't encourage innovation or for
people to be individuals. This was a political not cultural
phenomenon. Now you can hardly say that the Chinese don't have
massive, visible incentives and exemplars of the benefits of being a
creative individual. The rewards are there and the people will
follow. In India, the issue was less social or cultural than
bureaucratic - it used to take over a year to get all your business
licenses, a bank account and a phone - no wonder business was slow to
grow. Through the late eighties and nineties a lot of that was fixed
and we now see business booming in a way that the US can only be
envious of.

Yes, there is a layer of people in these societies who are from the
old way, staid and resistant to change, the same is true in most
countries, but the US has gotten better at putting them out of work,
laying off. Other cultures still take care of the older workers after
they've lost their youthful initiative.

I have to say though, that is I was a creative engineer and someone
with your attitude walked into my office, I wouldn't exactly be
forthcoming with my "thinking outside the box", I'd wait until someone
I liked and respected came along to work with. Or better yet, I'd
seek them out.

Sweeping generalizations like yours are meaningless, particularly when
you apply it to over two billion people. Are you telling me that
there are no creative Chinese and Indian engineers? Or just that it
is a small percentage - because a small percentage of a couple of
billion people will be no small group!

Thomas Paterson
http://www.luxpopuli.com

And, of course, any impressions that we have now are just snapshots.
Societies change. I don't know what percentage of Chinese still read and
follow the teachings of Confucius; but I'd be surprised if those in the
younger generations are as interested as those in older ones. Unless it's
somehow in the DNA, thinking and attitudes can change quickly as has been
seen in both Japan and India. The lighting technology that I see coming out
of China in the residential market is quickly "climbing the innovation
curve" and reminds me of what I saw from Japan some years ago -- except it's
happening faster.

Terry McGowan

 

[dutchboy2]

China is going to be modernizing for a long time; I don't think your
relative needs to worry about it. Nor do most engineers in the rest of
the world emigrate when the market at home gets bad. But of course it
depends on what kind of engineering. The people who design integrated
circuits have a very different job from the people who make buildings
stand up.

Randolph

Personally, I would prefer to see the racism some commenters have
expressed go to /dev/null.

Racism? Nothing this man has said is racist. I love Chinese people.
But they are very different in the way they think, reason and socialize.
I speak from personal experience, do you? Maybe it actually is in the
DNA as some have stated in this thread, especially since their culture
is thousands of years old and ours only several hundreds. But, to deny
that the lack of innovation or native creativity exists will never
change the situation. Have a look at this link;

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/imagination-08182009110502.html

From my vantage point, the Chinese are happy and content to be the
factory to the World and comfortable in the partnerships they have made
to bolster their weaknesses. The change over to Western styles of
ideation will take a very long time because of their long and proud
heritage. What would you PC boys do if the original innovation, detailed
design, QA systems and industrial process control all came from the
East, without any help from the West? What would you do for a living to
be able to buy that HP calculator made in Singapore to help you with the
squiggly math? Maybe you could get a job in Shanghai washing Escalades
that are made there in the Worlds largest GM plant.

 

[dutchboy2]

Huh? the article argues exactly the reverse than you, and agrees with
Terry, Tim and others. This is an educational issue - education is
part of culture. And it's not universal, and it's not absolute.

Anyone who says "I'm not a racist....they..." is at least applying
stereotyping across an entire population. I'd caution again, that's a
pretty silly thing to do when that population is over a billion! If
it's genetic, then it's racial, so it is definitively racism.

The main problem is that you're not even on our planet of thought -
you're talking generics, we're discussing the likely future for the
benefit of one person who is considering one specific career.

And yes, I spent five years working for a Chinese owned architectural
lighting design company. One of probably the top ten in the world.
Because they're so damn creative.

Are you a troll or just full of crap?

Thomas.

Now you are showing your true colors you self righteous PC and snotty
Amelican boy! Let's end this silly discourse as I will never convince
you of anything, you already know it all. I hope you are comforted by
taking a second seat and humbling yourself to your employers.

 

[Jeff Jonas]

The friend's reasoning is that China is about to do to engineering

what India did to info tech in the early 2000's

What are your thoughts on this speculation? Is there ground for concern?

I'm an engineer because I love the profession and what we do.
I'll keep it as a hobby even when it's not my main job.

Even if one is not a practicing engineer,
the degree is greatly respected for other jobs
because engineers are practical problem solvers.

I must bow to the facts, though.
When I attended NJIT from 2003-2006 for my Master's degree in Computer Engineering,
most of the engineering students were from China, India and Paksitan.
Most of the PhDs were Chinese.
Some stayed in the USA, particularly those in the academic track.
Some returned home.
And I share your concern, for China has a lot of brilliant, motivated people
INVENTING THINGS whereas the USA is busy in a lose-lose situation
of companies intentionally preventing innovation
(such as never ending Copyrights, trivial Patents,
broken-as-designed extort/// copy protection schemes by the RIAA,
outsourcing so much that there's nothing left to any company or brand-name,
"value engineering" all qualilty or value-added out of the product ...).