If you’re either young, female, and/or minority with an engineering degree you can get a job in Houston. Middle aged white men need not apply.
There has always been a rush on hiring recent engineering graduates. Companies want employees with the latest knowledge. The job market for engineers 10, 20 years after graduation is very different. Many have to move to the marketing part of the business to keep their income level up, something that many engineers do not want to do.
I'm a staff electrical engineer, working in Houston for almost 30 years. I have NO type of responsibility in our HR department. Nonetheless, I get a bonus for any referral that results in a new hire at our engineering company, which has several thousand employees.
Right now I could get an EE with a power background hired immediately, without regard to age, sex, skin tone, etc. An electrical designer/draftsman would similarly not be hard to place at all.
I would expect that job to be available for quite a few years, just like I expect mine to be. YMMV.
Right now any engineer, of any age, color or gender will be hired in Houston. I work for a medium sized engineering company with a large multinational oil company as a client. Just like the article says, if you walk around our office of 350 people, you will see chemical, eletrical, civil and mechanical engineers, mostly 28 and under or 50 and over. The industry’s poor employment for 20 years drove out a whole generation. Last year, if you could spell “engineer”, you would be hired. This year, if you spell it with only one wrong letter, you’ll be hired.