Posted on 03/04/2008 11:51:20 AM PST by central_va
Aerospace and Defense Sector Braces for Potential Brain Drain As Cold War Workers Retire
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The aerospace and defense sector is bracing for a potential brain drain over the next decade as a generation of Cold War scientists and engineers hits retirement age and not enough qualified young Americans seek to take their place. ADVERTISEMENT
The problem -- almost 60 percent of U.S. aerospace workers in 2007 were 45 or older -- could affect national security and even close the door on commercial products that start out as military technology, industry officials said.
While U.S. universities are awarding two-and-a-half times more engineering, math and computer science degrees than they did 40 years ago, defense companies must compete with the likes of Google, Microsoft and Verizon for the best and the brightest.
"It's about choices," said Rich Hartnett, director of global staffing at Boeing Co. "There are so many more options today with a proliferation in the kinds of degrees and career paths that people can follow."
Industry leaders are doing their best to emphasize the allure, and growing importance, of jobs linked to national defense.
Aerospace Industries Association Chief Executive Marion Blakey said the U.S. could be facing another "wake-up call," similar to the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite. China's success in shooting down one of its own satellites last year, as well as the upcoming retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet, signal that the country cannot afford to take its technological and military superiority for granted, said Blakey, the former head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
In addition to fierce competition for a limited pool of math and science experts from all corners of corporate America, contractors working on classified government programs are hamstrung by another factor: restrictions on hiring foreigners or off-shoring work to other countries.
"The ability to attract and retain individuals with technical skills is a lifeblood issue for us," said Ian Ziskin, corporate vice president and chief human resources and administrative officer for Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp.
Ziskin estimates that roughly half of Northrop Grumman's 122,000 workers will be eligible to retire in the next five to 10 years. The trend is the same at Lockheed Martin Corp., of Bethesda, Md., which could lose up to half of its work force of 140,000 to retirement over the next decade. At Chicago-based Boeing, about 15 percent of the company's engineers are 55 or older and eligible to retire now.
The launch of Sputnik set off panic that the U.S. was falling behind in the space race. And it swelled the ranks of aerospace and defense workers as a wave of Americans answered a call to help the U.S. regain military superiority and began careers building rocket ships and missiles.
Fifty years later, industry executives fear there won't be enough new defense sector workers to replace those employees as they retire.
In 2005, U.S. universities awarded 196,797 undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, math and computer science, according to the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. That's up sharply from 77,790 degrees in 1966. But competition for those graduates is more intense than ever.
Defense companies today are competing with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- not to mention Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Navy -- for computer science majors, according to Kimberly Ware, associate director for employer relations at Virginia Tech. They are vying with General Electric Co., Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the big auto makers for electrical and mechanical engineering graduates, she said.
For its part, Boeing is up against telecom giants such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. as it grows its satellite business. It even competes with video game makers such as Electronic Arts Inc. for 3D graphic designers and software programmers.
At the same time, defense executives acknowledge, the sector does not exert the same patriot pull as it once did since young people today have never known a time when the U.S. was not a leader in space exploration or the world's sole superpower.
The industry confronts another challenge too. Unlike technology companies, defense companies generally have to hire American citizens since they need employees who can obtain security clearance. This eliminates foreign graduates of American universities and foreign employees in the U.S. on H-1B visas.
"The talent is going to have to be homegrown," said Blakey of the aerospace association.
Similarly, defense contractors cannot outsource to countries with more technical workers, such as India or China.
Against this backdrop, defense companies are reaching out to American students in the earliest grades.
Lockheed Martin is sending employees into elementary schools to tutor students in math and science and is recruiting high school students to shadow Lockheed workers on the job. The company's engineers coach robotics teams, conduct rocket propulsion experiments for students and participate in mentoring programs.
Northrop Grumman has established a program called Weightless Flights of Discovery, which allows middle school teachers to experience temporary weightlessness on "zero-gravity" airplane flights that mimic how astronauts train for space travel.
Defense contractors are also trying to market themselves to job candidates with flexible schedules, tuition reimbursement programs and plenty of opportunities for advancement. Above all, noted Linda Olin-Weiss, director of staffing services at Lockheed Martin, the defense industry offers "challenging work on programs of national importance."
The implications of falling behind extend beyond national security since military technology often has civilian uses, too. The origins of GPS satellites and the Internet are linked to military applications.
But with the U.S. space program planning a return to the moon and a manned mission to Mars, Blakey believes there is at least one event on the horizon that could lure a new generation of Americans into the aerospace and defense industry.
"The question is: how do you encourage young kids to think of themselves as potential scientists and engineers," Blakey said. "We hope that a return to the moon and Mars will help inspire them."
Because, like, it’s so hard to do math and stuff! and why do twe need to learn this junk anyways? I got a job at them mall and they like give me free health insurance and everything and I get $300 per week on minimum wage, but whats thi FICA stuff. And the governbemnt took out a lot of moeny for taxes so when I get it all back at the end of the year i will like be so able to quit for a while and spend the summer at the beach and some junk.
Unfortunately, there is a viscious cycle...
If you want a technical culture from which to hire, you need technical parents to bear future technical children (mostly). However, the companies pay technical people jackshit wages and do next to nothing to cultivate and train the engineers they have. Technical guy with poor wages knocks up technical gal, can’t pay for family becuase the f’ing corporations are so greedy and cheap he can’t earn enough money, she aborts...end of story.
Meantime, they can’t resist pressing down on tech wages with H whatever visas. It’s pathetic and they talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Previous military experience isn’t necessary to get a job in the defense industry. Though getting a clearance without it is time consuming (have to start at a less sensitive position then wait the months for the clearance to come through).
A smaller number of engineers just may eat into that "process" side, leaving the design/manufacturing types to work with much fewer meetings and a lot less paperwork.
Of course, the real crying need is for good technical management....
Being and engineer for LMCO I can see why so few new engineers want to work here.... The benefits are always taking a hit, the pay scales suck by comparison, the management treats us like crap, the Government treats us worse. I could go on and on... the upshot is that unless business practices change for defense contractors... they will become extinct. Simple attrition will start, and as they pile more and more work on those who remain and pay them less and less while treating us as servants more of us will leave to sell insurance. At least there we might get a little respect for the time and effort it takes to get a engineering degree.
Amen to that brother.
It has been a long simmering issue where the corporations have taken advantage of the devotion of most engineers. Well, that forest is getting drier. Someone strikes a spark at the right time, the tech corporations are going to have a forest fire they can’t put out.
There have been BS efforts by some corporations to create parallel promotion ladders to management, etc. But these are band-aids.
They worry about engineer shortages, but fail to do the obvious, just as you mention above. It really is a pathetic situation long overdue for change.
I’ve written “Raising an Engineer”, on Amazon.com, a humorous essay on this very concept.
Maybe not for all, but for a good many of them it is true. My husband has several different security clearances, including DOD ones, yet far too many positions that don’t even require them are closed to him because although he has all other required job experience, he has no military experience in the form of time served.
“Technical guy with poor wages knocks up technical gal, can’t pay for family becuase the f’ing corporations are so greedy and cheap he can’t earn enough money, she aborts...end of story.”
I cannot buy your explanation here. It’s all wrong.
I can sympathize: we have the same problems at Boeing, and the constant cutting of jobs leaves none of us with any job security.
Then we see idiots we went to school with, who partied and drank their way through college, making 3-5 times what we do. . . not exactly an encouragement to go into our line of work...
Maybe if the US government lets in another 20 million Mexican 6th grade drop outs......
Oh, I see your plant got to hang the ISO900x Banner out on the front of the building, too!
You got it! Plus between HR and Safety regs, the people who’s job it is to make sure nothing is getting done are winning.
Same here in DOD agency. Since computerization Engrs.& Architects have become ‘hacks’. Whatever 20+ icons
on their screen they should be xpert at.
Timekeeping + reports + email + endless training + travel docs + budgets=
leaves a little bit of time for DESIGN.
I heard that 80's "Two Ladder" buzzword in my Fortune 500's.
It was a lie, a fraud, and a scam then, and it still has not gone away.
"We have to tell them SOMETHING, or they'll escape, and there go the bonuses and stock options we make on them!".
When the hosts leave, the parasites die.
President Obama’s Pacifist economy won’t be needing any “Doers”, just “Helpers”, like his wife said. Men who know Physics, make bombs. So, no more Physics for boys.
Statistics support that Engineers actually do better as insurance brokers than any other skill set. Odd but true
The customer complained about the Ada productivity and insisted on switching to C++. That was a bigger mistake because the unproductive "Ada engineers" were retained on the project to write C++...a language they were totally incompetent to handle. A tragedy of errors.
.
“The Knack - He’s Going to be an Engineer” - Dilbert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0
Pay them and they will come. Stop outsourcing the freaking jobs and provide for some stability, and they will come.
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