Recovery and jobs

It's not just manufacturing jobs that will see sluggish growth.

By Rick Nelson, Editor in Chief -- Test & Measurement World, 6/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

E-mail

The electronics industry seems poised for a strong comeback. In Q1 2010, the semiconductor industry posted a record for IC shipments in a quarter, delivering 44.5 billion units, according to IC Insights' 2010 McClean Report. That number contrasts with the previous high of 44.1 billion units in Q3 2008 and was 59% higher than the 28 billion units shipped in Q1 2009.

Share your thoughts on employment at a DAC panel discussion on June 14.

It would seem that the news must be equally good for the OEMs buying those chips and the test and measurement companies that ensure the quality of the chips and end products they populate. Sim­ilarly, the picture should be good for employment.

That's not necessarily the case, however. On May 11, Carey Gillam of Reuters reported from the Manufact­uring and Transpor­tation Summit in Chicago that "U.S. payroll numbers may be starting to improve, but leaders from a cross-section of manufacturing and transportation companies...remain reluctant to hire too many workers too soon."

It's not just manufacturing jobs that will see sluggish growth. Barriers remain to engineering job growth, at least in the US. In a recent interview, Silvina Grad-Freilich, parallel-computing marketing manager at The MathWorks, suggested that parallel computing promises to make engineers more productive. Unfortunately,  that can lead employers to conclude that it's cheaper to add processor cores or augment computer clusters than it is to hire engineers.

Post your comments at www.tmworld.com/blog. To read past "Editor's Note" columns, go to www.tmworld.com/editorsnote

Another problem is that the US may be losing its competitive edge—an issue I addressed in my editorial in the May 13 issue of sibling publication EDN. As evidence, many of the companies winning EDN Innovation Awards in April had deployed multinational engineering teams to earn their awards.

Further evidence that US engineers don't have a monopoly on innovation was Intel's announcement in April that it plans to invest $177 million over the next three years to expand its Guadalajara, Mexico, design center. Intel CEO Paul Otellini made the announcement during a press conference with Mexico President Felipe Calderon. The investment will focus on technology development activities and education initiatives that support Calderon's National Digital Plan.

The expansion at Intel GDC (Guadalajara design center) will include the construction of labs, office space, and a technology museum for children. Intel also estimated that approximately 150 technical jobs will be created over three years, bringing the total number of GDC engineers to 550.

"As a global computing leader, we believe that investing in the future of discovery is an essential business decision," Otellini said. "Our team in Mexico will continue to help us do this. This new investment today extends our long-term commitment to Mexico."

If US-based engineering employment is to grow, US engineers will have to successfully compete with their counterparts, such as the designers at GDC, in other countries. And US companies will need to deploy enhancements like parallel computing tools to vastly expand their innovative efforts—not simply to do a little more with the same number of engineers.

I'll be moderating a panel titled "Career Outlook: Job Market 2010" June 14 at the Design Automation Conference. Come and share your thoughts on employment and innovation.