SAE International sponsored a report at the end of 2023 that says that the U.S. is already facing a shortage of engineers, and that the problem is going to get worse. SAE International is a professional organization for wireless engineers that has 128,000 members worldwide.

According to the report, the U.S. needs 400,000 new engineers every year. They say one-third of engineering jobs go unfilled and the trend will continue at least through 2030. The U.S. is not the only country facing an engineering shortage, and the report cited Japan and Germany as having similar problems. The American Council of Engineering Companies, which represents nearly 6,000 engineering firms, sent a letter to the White House to describe the same crisis.

The SAE report lists some of the reasons for the engineering shortfall.

• We’ve had a longstanding cap on H-1B visas at 85,000 per year, which covers all technical positions and not just engineers. Unless that cap is lifted, the country will have to somehow fill the gap domestically.
• There is a mismatch between the engineering skills available and the demand. The report says the biggest engineer shortage is for software, industrial, civil, and electrical engineers. There is a market glut of material, chemical, aerospace, and mechanical engineers.
• SAE also sees a knowledge gap for many engineers. Many open engineering positions need engineers that are familiar with next-generation techniques.
• There is still a big gender gap. While 60% of all college students are women, only 20% of engineering graduates are women. Filling the need is going to require attracting more women to become engineers.
• Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that most of the people who want to become engineers don’t make it. Only 13% of high school students who express a desire to become an engineer make it to graduation with a college degree in engineering. Even more startling, only half of those who graduate college with an engineering degree go on to become engineers, as many are lured into other technical jobs.
• An interesting observation is that tech companies are reluctant to cross-train their engineers or even join any industry-wide efforts to attract more engineers to the field. There is fierce competition for engineers, and employers are fearful of losing more than they gain by such efforts.

The report sees no easy fix for the engineer shortage. They suggest strategies like training technicians to fill some portion of the engineer’s role. They suggest more training programs in junior colleges and trade schools for the kind of technical training that can fill some of the engineer roles. They suggest retraining for engineers from less in-demand disciplines. They think there must be a reexamination from bottom to top for schools and universities to find ways to attract more students to STEM degrees, but more importantly, to help students to complete degrees.

The U.S. is at an interesting crossroads. We’ve started a process of bringing a lot of our manufacturing back to the U.S. Automated factories can replace many of the lower-skill jobs in a factory, but there can be no replacement or shortcuts for the engineers and the technical people needed to design and operate our complex new factories.