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May 25, 2006
Drowning By Numbers: Engineering in China, India, U.S.
Ninety-nine percent of statistics are inaccurate, right? Some numbers that have been receiving a lot of attention of late, we've come to realize, belong in that proverbial majority; U.S. engineers are reported as holding their own compared with counterparts in China and India.
India's and China's educational systems are known for producing many, MANY engineers, and these educational systems often are considered to be slowly but steadily overtaking the U.S. in technological leadership. But that may not be the case, says a controversial Duke University study that contradicts the assumption that China and India are leagues ahead of the U.S. in engineering graduates.
A Duke study entitled "Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate" last December pointed out that engineers are defined differently in different places. Those differences give the impression that foreign colleges are graduating more engineers, as measured by U.S. standards, than they really are.
And Duke University testimony presented to Congress' Committee on Education and the Workforce this month supports its recent study, saying that U.S. engineers are holding their own compared with their Chinese and Indian counterparts. At least, for now they are.
The stats 600,000, 350,000 and 70,000 are supposedly the number of engineers produced in 2004 in China, India and the United States, respectively. According to the perception gleaned via these numbers, we're losing our competitive edge.
Then again, as noted 19th century novelist and British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The aforementioned numbers attained what appeared to be impeccable credibility when they were featured in a press release last October about a new report from the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, a joint group from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine (which, with the National Research Council, are collectively known as the National Academies), notes the Washington Post. The academies titled the 543-page report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" (an allusion to Winston Churchill's book "The Gathering Storm," about events leading up to World War II). So, given such loftiness, the numbers were picked up by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and vast other sources.
The numbers first drew major notice when they appeared in a Fortune magazine story on July 25, 2005. Wall Street Journal columnist Carl Bialik sought the original source of these stats and found the most likely origin for the 600,000 Chinese engineers was a 2002 speech by Ray Bingham, then-chief executive of a semiconductor company. While Bialik couldn't find any obvious birthplace for the Indian figures, National Science Foundation analysts told him the number was unlikely to be anywhere near 350,000. Meanwhile, a McKinsey Global Institute report had cast doubt on the quality of the Chinese engineering graduates, so Bialik reasoned that removing unqualified candidates would obviously reduce the total.
The numbers don't work in apples-to-apples comparisons, says Vivek Wadhwa, executive-in-residence and adjunct engineering professor at Duke, in an EE Times article this week. China and India include graduates of two- and three-year programs in their statistics. Further, particularly in China, the term "engineer" is used more loosely than in the U.S.
The Chinese government-issued 2004 China Statistical Yearbook reports 644,000 engineering graduates that year. Yet the yearbook merely assembled the numbers sent by provincial governments. This means two things: the accuracy of these provincial reports is unknown, and it remains foggy whether the provinces shared common definitions — the word "engineer" does not translate easily into many Chinese dialects.
In fact, according to the Washington Post, about half of what China calls "engineers" would be called "technicians" at best in the U.S., with the equivalent of a vocational certificate or an associate degree.
Says EE Times:
Looking at all computer science and information technology degrees from four-year schools in 2004, Duke originally came up with 137,437 engineering graduates for the U.S., compared with 112,000 for India and 351,537 for China. When a visiting Chinese scholar told researchers the actual numbers were much higher, they directly contacted 200 of the 400 Chinese engineering schools to get a clearer picture. Most couldn't give detailed information.
The 30 larger universities that provided 2004 data said they had a total of 29,205 graduates in fields they classified as engineering. The only clear conclusion reached was that Chinese engineering numbers are increasing, Wadhwa said.
But this is simply picking at words. Bigger issues remain neglected in our narrowly focusing on graduation rates.
Consider quality. While China may be producing more engineers in order to keep up with its growing economy, it is doing so with a factory-like approach.
A McKinsey study of nine occupations, including engineering, concluded that "fewer than 10 percent of Chinese job candidates, on average, would be suitable for work [in a multinational company] in the nine occupations we studied."
So after an exhaustive study, researchers at Duke University pummeled the numbers. In their December '05 analysis, they reported that the U.S. annually produces 137,437 engineers with at least a bachelor's degree while India produces 112,000 and China 351,537 — that is more U.S. degrees per million residents than in either other nation.
Yet, while the National Academies replaced the erroneous numbers with the numbers from Duke, many researchers are standing by their original conclusion that the U.S. is well behind other countries.
Are we? Aren't we? You tell us.
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54 CommentsI am working hard as a volunteer in the middle schools to bring about interest in math and science. I am retired but work as a volunteer to bring Solid Works Software and other associated programs and teach it at age appropriate levels to these young minds. It's already being done in other countries, and I want to plant some seeds to nurture these youngsters into those careers.
May 25, 2006 4:58 PMI think the figures for India are inflated. Of the 100,000 odd engineers graduating only about 50% of them would measure up to "MNC" or equivalent hiring requirements. The rest would obviously not be in a position to be hired and would need to be trained or take additional qualifications. Considering that about 20% of engg graduates move to sales and other non - engg jobs, it is easy to believe that only about 30% of the stated figure enter the mainstream engg field. I would assume the real figure is about 20,000 that is really comparable with US / China data.
May 26, 2006 1:49 AMI am an Iranian student , and I think it is not important how much an engineer is trained in university, because an engineer learns more in industry and in work. College is important but it is not final criterion. In US, with high-tech industries, an engineer would grow very better than in India or China.
May 30, 2006 5:25 AMWell, I greatly agree with Sahand Tashak.The number of years spent at College or Universty is not the quallification for one to be rated as an Engineer. It is what you are capable to do after graduation which gives you the title of an Engineer. Again, it depends on which country you are based in. I personally spent 5 years of training here in Zimbabwe in the Electronic field but I do not qualify to be called an engineer but a technician. However, if I go to other countries, I would be a very good engineer.
June 2, 2006 8:18 AMI graduated from Cornell University in 1945 with a BSME degree. I agree with the thoughts of those above who talk about their training in school versus that obtained with the knowledge gained in the field. The opportunities in this country are so much greater than those in either China or India that the statistics of how many engineers are being produced by the schools is not relavent because their graduates do not have as many opportunites that we do.
Secondly, if you compare populations -- China over 2 billion versus U.S.A. of 300,000 we are producing almost the same percentage of engineers per capita as they are.
June 12, 2006 12:20 PMI truly believe that all of this misinformation is totally baseless and the mainstream media only perpetuates the problems as most people tend to take what the media states as gospel.
I have been in the Engineering and Design field for 15 years and find that many of the comments here have some basis as to churning out "Engineers". However, I work for many fortune 500 corporations and as they tend to outsource work, a majority (and I am being conservative here) do so based upon cost savings alone and nothing else. Quality of work does not even factor into the equation of who will receive the work as the cost reduction requirements are driven down from the top and it is the only way that they feel like costs can be controlled.
I see it every day as I lose work to India and China. I recently lost a project with an established client as they manufacture "everything" in China. Normally, we would have performed the design and engineering functions, but the manufacturing resource offered to do the work for "FREE". As ignorance tends to set in when one is faced with "FREE", our client gave the work to the Chinese supplier who has no track record of design (they are a sheetmetal fabricator). What they did not capture (because our client was too focused on "FREE") is that the supplier built the Engineering costs into the piece parts and was more costly than if we had performed the work. Since the costs were built into the parts, our client is now paying for the design and engineering each year for the next 5-10 years of the products life.
This is just one of the many examples of how ignorant and stupid people are making the decisions which drive (or don't drive) our economy and the fact that it really doesn't matter if you have a degree or not (from an accredited University) as the only focus is on "COST" and nothing else matters. For those of you who frequent Wal-Mart for the cheap Chinese products that they offer, you are only helping to perpetuate the problems of job loss and the decline of manufacturing here in the US of A.
June 12, 2006 12:26 PMI agree with Bruce's comment. It seems like companies in the US seem to be in a blind, Wal-Mart style race to the bottom (mine being one of them -- we contract computer progamming to a company in India). I try to avoid the place (Wal-Mart), and when there, have tried to buy US-made goods, but it is nearly impossible. What if the retailers were required to put "Another US Job Outsourced to China" on items they sell? Would anyone care?
I only hope my employer doesn't figure out a way to outsource plant engineering and front-line maintenance supervision......
June 12, 2006 1:00 PMI earned my BSME IN 1963, at which time I had a great deal of practical experience in design and engineering. In that period of time, there were fewer that eight engineering degrees offered in the best schools in the United States. In my opinion, too many fields are describe as engineering and should be described as technician / technical schools.
I had a good practical knowlege and training in machinery, engines, aircraft, pressure vessels, etc. in addition to my engineering education from a prominent Texas engineering school. I was able to step in to a manufacturing facility and immediately begin comtributing to the company's
product line thru my engineering effort.
Some countries's engineering schools turn out record numbers of graduates, but are they really engineers? Without the value of good common sense and how to apply their knowledge attained in school, how can they really be called engineer?
In our country we are seeing an attitude swing toward the idea that it is acceptable to do as little as one can get by with. Only once the engineering field realizes that "professional" is a way of life, not a simple set of criteria, will this country be capable of boasting any real margin in excellence.
June 12, 2006 1:17 PMThe articles last fall also pointed out the position of the government in China and how they promoted the "engineering field" with financial incentives for students. Bush said in his state of the union address that we needed to advance technology for our country to remain strong. I am not aware of Bush doing anything to "advance technology".
I received my BSME in 1961 and have witnessed the difference in what various countries describe as engineers. I therefore agree that the numbers are not meaningfull due to this difference. However, what is relevant is that the political leadership doesn't see a need for technological leadership and the CEO's of industry are blinded by the bottom line. Those two issues make the discussion of what the real numbers are, meaningless.
Until the pendalum swings far enough to financially impact the political leadership fund raising ability, they will take [not?] any action. The business leaders will only change when they see a reduction in their year end bonus. Since both of those take years to happen, other factors will change to the degree that the real cause will be clouded or forgotten.
June 12, 2006 1:56 PMWhy bother to educate American people in engineering? The jobs are going overseas faster than we can graduate engineers. But it's good to go to college and get a degree. That way you'll know what kind of work you're out of.
Reminds me of that slogan from the 1930's depression: "Soon we'll all have nothing to do and all day to do it."
Get your pick axes and shovels, America, time for another MARCH on Washington.
June 12, 2006 2:36 PMI work for a company employing dozens of engineers in a variety of disciplines, from software to mechanical to electrical. We also have rotating engineers from India working here for a few months to a year or so at a time, and about 90% of those are seriously sub-par. I agree that they are technicians or simply CAD operators at best. Their definition of engineer cannot match that of the US.
Of course, I'm also saddened by the direction our own country has turned the last couple decades. We continue to lower the standards to get into colleges, and to get hired, thus allowing less than qualified people into high-tech fields. Hence the decrease of quality of US engineering and products. I feel we should raise the bar again, only allow the most intelligent and ambitious into the best schools, leaving the lesser gifted to accept less prestigious educations and positions. Everyone deserves equal opportunities to higher education, but within their own means, mentally.
June 12, 2006 2:56 PMI think the corporate model needs to change. There is no reason why a corporation should not be able to make cuts on other items but labor per year. Business is driven by profits; there is no way around it. But that doesn't mean a corporation should sacrifice long-term goals while trying to attain short-term strategies. Companies should think twice before outsourcing jobs. They should promote the development of knowledge and respect technological resources as ulterior competitiveness depends on them.
This is what China is doing: sacrificing short-term goals in pursuit of a long-term strategy. They want to gain the power that knowledge has at any cost.
We all know companies can care less about knowledge as most are focused on short-term objectives. This is where the government should step in and not let markets regulate themselves. Rather, direct the research, invention and development of concepts toward useful goals. This is something, to the best of my knowledge, not being done.
I've been an Engineer for the past 19 years. I know by experience the power of numbers. China knows it very well, also. It does not matter how you classify a person. As long as they have a grasp of the fundamentals, either a technician or professional, have the ability to learn and excel if they try hard enough. In China, the incentive is pretty powerful: hunger. A Chinese worker is considered well paid if at the end of the day he receives a bowl of rice to eat.
So that means we need to protect our technology by all means. We also need to help new American engineers gain knowledge and transfer our expertise to them. Finally, we need a thoughtful and wise government that will address the transfer of technology problem in a smart way. If this is not done properly, we all will be doomed in less than forty years.
It will be interesting to see how the MTV generation will adapt and meet this challenge. Best of luck from the last generation of the baby boomers.
The reason why people shop at Wal-Mart is because they cannot afford to shop somewhere else. If people had more spending money, they would not shop at Wal-Mart.
Remember, our economy is based on supply and demand; the supply of money is much lower now than what it used to be 20 years ago, so people must shop with less. This is after the inflation rate has been factored in.
Furthermore, education is needed in order to get a good-paying job in the U.S., while in other nations there is no education because most jobs are just manufacturing. Here in the U.S., most manufacturing jobs will be gone because they require no education. The market, which now is a global market, will adjust for manufacturing jobs, and those jobs will follow nations with low-education levels like China and India. The U.S will keep all the higher-education jobs, so don't fool yourself by thinking an education is no longer needed.
The new technologies will come from the U.S., ex. Nanotechnology, new cleaner sources of fuel, Space travel exploration, Biomedicine to name a few. When was the last time you read about scientific research from China and India? Our only problem here in the U.S. is the price of educating our youth.
June 12, 2006 4:43 PMI believe everybody is right about everything from their own perspective. Why is the number of the engineering students so important all of a sudden when we have been so proud of migrating to a service-oriented society?
Be 600,000/350,000 per year from China/India or 6-million/3.5-million, or only 6-person/3.5-person (oops, if could be) really matter.
Measuring quality of the engineering school output is even harder. How can anybody prove American is better? Just draw a conclusion by looking at a few interns or exchange engineers?
It really matters nothing, be the American society alerted or not, from the government to corporate to the personal level. Why about being an engineer so proud of comparing with the CEO's compensation?
Only reality talks. Do we see any products from China/India today in the market place? Did we see any 60 years ago? If you still would like to argue, stay with your stereotype.
June 12, 2006 4:47 PMThe fact is they are catching up faster than we care to know in this fast-paced global economy.
Our basic educational system is breaking down, teachers got no respect and authority. The measuring stick for teacher standard are nonperforming and the family unit is breaking apart, also, causing a very unstable enrionment for learning. Instead of rewarding the star teacher, we are rewarding these administrators with outrageous packages that do not reflect the actual result.
Looking back at our country over the last 30 years, we have been losing the competitive edge steadily by greed, not excellence.
June 12, 2006 5:58 PMMike M. says, "If people had more spending money, they would not shop at Wal-Mart." Sorry, but I like shopping at Wal-Mart. There is a large selection, many of my daily needs have nothing to do with prestige, and my favorite brand of toothpaste is the same anywhere. Wal-Mart charges less and has it in stock more reliably. Same for many other items.
We should be very concerned about China and India's engineering prowess. They are behind, yes, but they are running faster and harder than we. It is a great mistake to make only a static comparison based on the present point in time. Check the stock market for a preview of our future.
In another 15-20 years, engineers from low-cost countries will achieve pay parity. It took Japan 20 years to achieve it. The currency valuations will change. At that time, companies without a wider engineering and manufacturing base will suffer more than companies which have taken a more holistic approach. German and Japanese firms continue to develop and manufacture products in Germany / Japan as well as in low-cost countries. They benefit from the strengths of both worlds. Consider this -- another 20 years, most of the large corporations that consider only cost will probably wither.
June 13, 2006 5:49 AMI am an Indian working in india doing software development work of a UK based company. It was interesting to read the comments. I earn one tenth of what my counterpart ( with similar experience and education) in UK makes yearly ... but cost of living wise its great for me. But this cant be sustained for long. The salaries in india are growing incredibly... around 15% annualy. And if the trend continues, India will lose the edge in terms of cost effectiveness sooner or later. I give it ten years. Then you need not worry about outsourcing to India. We together will worry about outsourcing to Africa.
Also, because there seems to be so much confusion regarding engineering graduates passing out each year in India, you can visit the AICTE (All India Council For Technical Education) website and check for the correct figures yourself. An engineering college cannot be setup in the country without its approval. The intake of students for each engineering stream in each college in india is also controlled by AICTE. So its figures are as accurate as they can get.
A non-AICTE-approved degree is not a valid engineering degree in india. Last checked, there are 1346 Engineering Institutes (offering 4 year degree courses) with a total intake of 439689 students per year, of which I assume at least 300000 should pass out every year. And at 1/10th the cost of engineers in the US, I don't think that the quality of the professionals would ever be an issue to a businessman. Even if you put 5 people to do the same task here, it still is cheaper than hiring someone in the US.
June 13, 2006 6:20 AMEngineers are gods that walk the Earth. Not just a person with a degree. You have to know what your doing.
June 13, 2006 9:08 AMI am an engineer by profession from India and working in India. The number of engineers graduating has increased tremendously in the recent past and will be around 250,000 to 300,000 per annum.
June 14, 2006 4:23 AMI've been working in China for the last 4 years, and have met more 'engineers' than I had met in the previous 30 years. Chinese students who graduate as engineers are not what we call engineers in the west. Chinese Engineers "specialize" in a given application. They're more like technicians, by U.S. standards. They do not seem to be trained in basic engineering science, and are very deficient in such things. I have yet to meet a single one who has any familiarity for example, with the laws of thermodynamics.
I've worked with a wide variety of them in various fields. The few who know enough to think with science, have acquired it after years of experience.
Here's an illustration for a different field. Dentists are not trained as complete medical doctors; they're just trained as teeth repair technicians. They are quite good at what they have been trained; but they've no rounded knowledge of medicine.
So, even the reported statistics, do not tell you what engineers look like.
I once gave a class on database design to a group of Indian engineers. I have to tell you, they had formulas for everything I only had generalized logic from experience. In fact, if you gave them a stringent academic test, they would all pass with flying colors, where I would most likely fail. Yet, I could design databases, and they came to me to learn it.
Now I've had Indian engineers sitting next to me in working environments, and I have to say that overall, they've been a notch above some of the American counterparts.
What is in the future? In my opinion, the Chinese will take a very long time to catch up, because there are cultural, and educational system barriers which produce a way of thinking that prevents Chinese engineers, bright as they truly are on a personal level, from competing in development with the west.
Indians are top notch when it comes to raw technology, so they are likely to catch up faster if they are not there with US engineers already.
U.S. Engineers possess something, however, which I don't think either Indian nor Chinese has, which I believe is "educated out of them," and that is, a thirst for going outside the box, and breaking the mold, and moving beyond the conventional.
Before counting engineers, we need to define what one is.
June 15, 2006 10:10 AMhi, don't compare india and china, as they differ in everything. Only time will tell the things
August 26, 2006 7:07 AMI went through the article and i am really finding it amazing to note that "While Bialik couldn't find any obvious birthplace for the Indian figures, National Science Foundation analysts told him the number was unlikely to be anywhere near 350,000." The numbers are definitely not inflated and it is actually growing at 20% a year. In 2004-05 the number of engineers produced by India is 464,743. All these students have studied in Engineering colleges and have done four year programs. And these figures are from AICTE, (All India Council for Technical Education) which monitors the Technical education studies in India. More Importantly, AICTE approval is required to run an engineering college and no way are the figures inflated.
Now to the question of Quality, Yes i do agree, there is a much of waste being generated. It is a bigger issue because "Teaching" has lost its allure. Today everyone in India wants to be associated with IT and ITES where the Pay is good. The issue with the Indian System is that the number of engineering colleges have increased rapidly but the staff required to support it has not increased. More especially "Quality Staff" has not increased, which is the reason why i have mentioned that if you look at the number of engineering graduates passing out from India, quality wise there may be a dip. But still the well acknowledged fact is the cream in all the engineering colleges is excellent and if assuming 10% forms the cream, we still end up producing approximately 45 Thousand High Quality Engineers.
September 11, 2006 1:37 AMIts puzzling that people in the United States want to believe that India is producing less engineers and poor quality engineers. Maybe about half the engineers produced may not be up to the mark...but that is not the point. The point is: Never underestimate the rivals. It leads to complacency.
I'm about to graduate from high school, and I plan to study some form of science when I go to college. I think that there are fewer engineers in the United States because kids don't see it as a glamorous line of work. I've asked around, and most of my classmates want to major in liberal and fine arts. Less than ten percent of my class said they were interested in science.
With so much focus on actors and models, kids just don't have enough encouragement to become engineers.
March 19, 2007 9:27 PMThe article below seems to be quite reasonable:
The fact remains, U.S. tech leadership must be reinforced.
By Doug Fuller
A recent report from Duke University that critiques the supposed gap between the number of American science and engineering (S&E) graduates and those of merging economies -- especially China's -- has led to false reassurance that the U.S. lead in science and technology is not under threat from China. It would be a grave mistake to drop our concerns about China's competitive challenge.
Rest of analysis here: http://tinyurl.com/2gfk7g
April 14, 2007 1:25 PM
