Replies

I’m a Chemical Engineer. We have the average highest starting salary for decades. When I graduated in 97 the average was around $60K, now it is about $68K-$70K on average. If you look at starting salaries across the engineering disciplines, the data curves look almost unchanged over the last 20 years. Of course certain areas and specialties have considerable variance, but the general trends stand. An individual is simply a single data point. 1/3 of engineering grads never work as an engineer. With in 10 years of graduating, some 80% are no longer practicing engineers. If you are over 50, and laid off, the odds are that you will never work as an engineer ever again. If knowledge is worth, then why is it almost impossible for the more seasoned engineers to reengage? All we here is how we don’t have enough, but senior engineers are being replaced by kids or cheaper foreign workers every day. Just post an engineering job and you will get 100s of foreign engineers looking for sponsorship and willing to do anything for it. Brilliant PhDs working for $40K or $50K as line engineers but doing PhD level research.