GLOBALLY, ENGINEERS SHARE SIMILAR GRATIFICATION AND CONCERN

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” The classic Charles Dickens quotation could easily have applied to the situation in the engineering profession last year. Engineers are worrying about outsourcing of their jobs, feeling decidedly underappreciated, and working what they believe are excessive hours. But engineers receive higher compensation than workers in many other professions, and job satisfaction is high. This conundrum led EDN to conduct its first salary-and-career survey, and we believe it is the only such survey ever fielded worldwide. A summary presentation of the results here kicks off our fourth annual Global Report, and, as in the past, the print offering is a small part of the complete online Global Report.

Over the summer, EDN and our regional global editions conducted the salary and-career-satisfaction survey. EDN in the United States focused on North America, EDN Europe focused on Western Europe, EDN Japan focused on Japan, and EDN China focused on Mainland China. EDN Asia fielded surveys separately in India, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. We conducted the surveys via e-mail. We are hosting the complete set of information that we gathered in a new career section of our Web site. On the Web, you will find the intricate details on how we fielded the surveys as well as all of the data. Here, we’ll take a look at details that stand out along with some of the most interesting verbatim responses that we gathered.
JOB SATISFACTION
The combination of outsourcing and staff reductions has left North American engineers worrying about their future. Meanwhile, new engineering opportunities abound in parts of Asia. The situation seems ripe for a vastly different set of results when you ask engineers globally how satisfied they are with their career. And you might expect poor job satisfaction in North America.

Table 1 shows the results from North America. Surprisingly, most respondents in North America feel somewhat satisfied to very satisfied. The 30% that chose very satisfied dwarfs the response in that category from all of the regions that EDN Asia. Check the online details, and you will see that only India came close to North America at 27.2%. Europe also delivered positive numbers, and the sidebar “UK engineers relish working with technology and quality of life” chronicles several such engineers. Conversely, in Japan only 2.8% feel very satisfied. Excluding North America, the job-satisfaction curve has the traditional bell shape.

Looking at verbatim responses from engineers in North America, it’s hard to match those responses to the table. There are plenty of positive responses, but there are plenty of negative ones.
Outsourcing is near the top of the list of complaints. One North American respondent noted as a concern, “Job security—my company generally takes attrition in the US and does massive hiring in China and India. I’m even hearing of start-up companies that want to outsource all product development to India or China to conserve capital.” Outsourcing isn’t just prevalent in North America. Japanese respondents indicated that 18.7% of their design work is outsourced.
Still, in North America and Japan the prevailing mood is positive. And the primary reasons seem to be the satisfaction of tackling difficult problems, learning challenging technologies, and creating useful products (see sidebar “Technology creations drive Japanese engineers”). The North American survey identified “technical challenge” and “feeling of accomplishment” as the top two factors influencing job satisfaction.

The feelings extend to the global engineering community. An Indian respondent said, “I have been able to put most of my knowledge and skills in engineering to productive use. As I have worked in very small companies, mostly start-ups, I have been extremely hands-on and see the companies grow very visibly, and that has given me the most satisfaction.”

A respondent from Europe noted, “A multidisciplinary engineering career has got to be the most satisfying career; how else can you help mould the World whilst you learn how it works—magical!” An engineer in Taiwan added, “There is an opportunity to develop new products and to realize my professional expertise,” and a respondent in Southeast Asia stated, “Work is challenging in a way that there’s always new problems to solve.” Only China had a decidedly different take on satisfaction, choosing “advancement opportunities” and “benefits” as the two most important factors.
CHALLENGES IN THE ENGINEERING DAY
As for the most difficult challenge in their current jobs, Japanese engineers yielded some surprising answers. They mentioned the expected time crunch, excessive workload, and technical challenges, but several responses mirrored one respondent’s “shortage of midcareer engineers.” On the other hand, the survey revealed an average age of 41.2 years, with an average of 15 years as an engineer and more than seven in the current job—presumably a midcareer description.

Several Japanese respondents also noted managerial issues. One respondent stated, “divergence in consciousness with management,” and another replied, “arguing with the management team.” Rightfully or wrongfully, many view Japan as a region in which engineers once wouldn’t question authority, but that’s not the case today. Old generalizations would also suggest that motivation would never be an issue in discipline-centric Japan, yet respondents identified issues with lack of motivation.

Without question, engineers globally feel time-to-market pressure and the inevitably compressed schedules that are exacerbated by increasingly more complex technology. With regard to such challenges, an engineer from Southeast Asia named “customer product deadline and debugging the complex boards.” Keeping up with technology responses were among the most popular among North American respondents. One noted, “keeping on top of the current technologies” as the biggest challenge. “[I] finished college over 15 years ago, technological advances are happening all the time, and keeping abreast of the latest and greatest is time-consuming itself.” the respondent noted.
LONG DAYS, LONG WEEKS
Complexities of enabling technologies and end applications combine with tight schedules to make workload a global problem that straddles the issues of job challenges and job dissatisfaction. We asked engineers about the number of hours that they work per week. Table 2 summarizes the results; the hours they work range from 43.5 to 54 per week. The gap of more than 10 hours seems small, but it represents approximately 25% of the workweek. If you peruse the online data, you will find wide ranges of responses in each region. In Japan, for instance, more than 10% of the respondents work more than 60 hours per week.

Verbatim responses and other data indicate a more trying workload situation than Table 2 depicts. The sidebar “Korean engineers face mandated career choices” paints the profession as a 365-day-a-year job in that region. A North American respondent chose “work-life balance” as a key challenge, adding, “My employer is always wanting more of my time than I can give and then downgrades my performance because I cannot give as many hours as others.” A number of Taiwanese respondents note overtime work as an issues especially relative to their pay.
JOB DISSATISFACTION
Other factors in job dissatisfaction range from complaints about management to lack of recognition and decision-making power. Japanese engineers’ sources of job dissatisfaction match in other regions, but responses that stood out relate to career track, skill set, and decision making. One respondent noted, “My technical capabilities are too narrow.” Several mention the gap between the job at hand and the job that they would prefer to perform. Perhaps the most notable response, however, is “not authorized to make a decision.” Engineers globally believe in their ability to do their job and make good decisions, and Japan has among the deepest of experienced-talent pools.

Career track appears to be a big issue in China. According to the sidebar “Chinese electronic engineers seek transformation before the age of 35,” Chinese engineers seek to move into marketing or sales roles by midcareer, but some Korean engineers would prefer to stay on a technical career path but are forced into management.

The engineering profession in other parts of Asia is far younger both figuratively and literally than in Japan. That fact translates to lower pay, less job choice, and, potentially, greater dissatisfaction.

Responding to the dissatisfaction question, an Indian engineer from our EDN Asia survey noted, “I’m dissatisfied because of the pay structure of my company. I am still not into a proper development project. I’m forced take on the assignments mandated by management. My achievements are not recognized.”

But the positive responses in India outnumber the negative. Remembering that India is a newcomer in prevalent relatively well-paying engineering jobs, it’s still humbling to read a reason behind job satisfaction such as “sense of accomplishment and, of course, money for bread.”
COMPENSATION TOPS CONCERNS GLOBALLY
Not surprisingly, making a living and the salary top the list of concerns for engineers globally. Our survey has a lot of data on salaries, and you should explore the Web data for details. The highlights follow.

First, we offer a disclaimer. We conducted all of the surveys with salary questions pegged to local currency. We converted the amounts to US dollars. The conversions were accurate in August 2007 when we compiled the data but will vary—possibly greatly—over the long and even short term.

North American engineers won’t like a quick generalization of the results in Table 3. That data—$90,000 annual average salary—screams “North American engineers are overpaid.” The inequity between average salaries in North America and those in new engineering markets, such as China and India, will surprise few engineers. Moreover, engineers in those regions generally benefit from a very low cost of living. But engineers in mature markets, such as Japan and Europe, trail North American engineers by a broad margin, as well. And the cost of living in parts of Japan and Europe are higher than the cost of living in much of North America.

A more detailed look at the full compensation charts that we present on the Web paints a bit different picture. For instance, 13% of North American engineers make $90,000 to $100,000. In Japan, 9.8% make roughly $84,000 to $101,000. Moreover, the bulk of the Japanese engineers are clustered in groups making slightly less than $84,000. A look at those regions around the average North American salary does not suggest an almost $27,000 gap in average salary.
The big difference in North American and Japanese salary distribution really comes at the high end of the range. Table 4 shows that 6% of the engineers in North America make more than $150,000. Check the Web, and you will see that the percentage of such earners in Japan is approximately 0.5%.

In North America, engineers have surely benefited from stock options and other forms of bonuses that boost salary. That compensation could partially explain the difference. Again, however, close perusal of the online data provides more hints. In the North American survey, a greater number of respondents are in the R&D and engineering-management categories than those from Japan, whereas the Japanese survey has a greater percentage of design-engineering respondents. The European responses fall between the North America and Japanese responses, with 3% earning more than $150,000 and a relatively high management response.

There is no way to rationalize the gap in other regions, other than to accept that engineering salaries across Asia, except Japan, significantly trail North American salaries. The facts are that $90,000 salaries are simply unheard of in the regions that EDN Asia surveyed.
ASIAN RAISES TOP OTHER REGIONS
The good news for engineers across Asia is that the gap will close as engineers from India to Korea are getting greater annual increases percentagewise than Japanese and North American engineers. A number of verbatim responses lament low pay and nonexistent or small raises. One respondent from Taiwan stated, “There have been no increments in salary for a long time. In the long run, my salary might even be reduced.”

Overall, however, our survey paints a brighter picture. Table 5 shows the annual average increase by percentage. India tops the list at 11.5 %, but even the typical average increases across Pan-Asia come in at about double the average increases in Europe, Japan, and North America. In India, more than 30% of workers received a 10 to 20% raise.
STAFF REDUCTIONS
We asked the respondents in every region whether their companies had laid off engineers in the previous 12 months. Table 6 depicts the results. Frankly, the results are pretty good. Most companies lay off some amount of workers, either to eliminate employees that aren’t superstars yet aren’t performing poorly enough to fire or they scrap one project at the expense of a competing project.

We also asked respondents whether their companies had hired engineers in the previous 12 months. The answers were uniformly positive, with India at 93.6% and North America at 73%. Of course, we only asked the respondents if their companies hired engineers in the prior 12 months not where the jobs were located. To relive those of you in North America worrying that the new jobs were overseas, 89% of the North American respondents indicated that the jobs were located in North America.

Click here for Illustrations:

Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6