Florida is Facing an Engineering Staffing Crisis
Senior Engineer, Chen Moore and Associates
Filling in the Talent Gap
News Alert! Florida is facing an engineering staffing crisis. Part of the solution, fortunately, could come in the form of recognizing the problem and recruiting new members for our Florida Engineering Society.
As our federal and state governments each pump more money into our failing infrastructure through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and similar programs, the need for talented engineers with experience is rising dramatically. Add to this to the steady retirements of Baby Boomers, and we find that we come up short-staffed. As human resources and company owners try to hire staff to do this work, they are finding talent gaps in the workforce.
A Perfect Storm
This talent shortfall has been simmering on the horizon for years. Unfortunately, we have struggled to communicate to the next generation the value of our engineering profession. Stacked on top of this are major 2009 demographic changes, the effects of COVID accelerating retirement, and engineering professionals leaving – or never entering – the field.
Florida has seen an increase in population over the last 100 years, which has been great for our economy. Florida has only seen negative growth rates two times in this period. Both were associated with significant recessionary periods around 1920 and 1946. Meanwhile, Florida’s population has grown steadily, but starting in 1960, it has been slowing. Florida’s growth rate generally stayed above 2% except for two periods in the last 20 years. The first was in or around 2009, and the second was in 2020 – periods associated with sizeable financial turmoil in Florida’s economy.
The engineering profession is generally seen as a stable employment industry where individuals skilled in math and science can find reliable work and high-paying, high-skill jobs. Civil engineering is one of the oldest disciplines from which almost all other specializations have branched. Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute was the first to award a civil engineering degree in 1824. Over time many new disciplines have come forward from this beginning.
Florida Population 1900-2022 (macrotrends.net)
One of the major requirements of an engineering career is an accredited degree in engineering. Starting in 2007, there was a cooling off and then a decline in the number of science and engineering degrees awarded. This trend hit a low point in 2010. Looking at these numbers across Associate, Undergraduate, Master, and Ph.D. degrees, graduate degrees saw an increase in the first few years. 2005 to 2008 revealed a potential shift in students continuing to graduate studies. All degrees saw a low point around the same time in 2010.
In 2016, the Department of Labor indicated that careers in biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, and civil engineering would grow the most over the decade from 2014 to 2024, with civil engineering growing 8.4%. The estimated demand for civil engineers in 2024 would be close to 305,000 employees. Unfortunately, the impact of the Great Recession and the projected growth of civil and environmental engineering degrees completed shows the potential for a shortage of available engineers to fill future labor needs. Also concerning are most projections that we are working with today did consider the need for the replacement of retiring engineers but did not consider the impact that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will have on demand for engineers in the next five to ten years.
In 2017, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) published a report identifying trends in degrees awarded for 20 disciplines making up most of the engineering degrees. The data indicate that all disciplines generally saw a downturn in degrees awarded with a low point between 2007 – 2009. Of note, the mechanical, biomedical, and computer science disciplines have been increasing more significantly than other disciplines, with mechanical making up the largest share of the number of engineering degrees awarded. Also, even as the demand for civil and environmental engineers has increased and projections show an even greater need for these engineers, these disciplines have remained relatively flat. The report revealed that outside of the discipline people choose to study, some people never pursued an engineering degree that could. For a multitude of reasons, including personal choice, individuals who could pass the rigorous engineering curriculum selected other careers like finance or business.
Growth in engineering degrees by discipline (asee.org)
During an economic downturn, individuals with technical skills capable of problem-solving, such as engineers, will need to find work where available in a tight labor market, even if this means finding a job outside their chosen degree. As the housing market declined in Florida, populations shifted across the nation to areas less impacted by the unfavorable housing market. As housing started and construction contracted, the need for engineers decreased quickly. During 2005-2010, graduates found work in occupations not considered engineering, and this occupation shift continues today. The choices individuals make to pursue graduate degrees, move out of Florida, or join industries unrelated to engineering between 2005 and 2010 have resulted in a demographic bottleneck of professional engineers with 10 to 15 years of experience, limiting the availability of engineers currently in senior-level roles.
The engineering workforce in 2013 (Source: NSCG 2013)
Fortunately, reports from 2016 indicate that students graduating with engineering degrees have been increasing rapidly between 2014 and 2018. The most significant growth was in computer science, computer engineering, chemical engineering, and biomedical engineering. However, civil engineering and environmental engineering saw a 30% growth. As a comparison, computer science saw 103% growth during these four years. Making this problem worse are 2015 projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that the changes in engineering occupations between 2014 and 2024 do not match the degrees being sought. The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that careers in electronic engineering, except for computer engineering, will see the largest decreases, followed by aerospace and nuclear engineering.
Employment outlook for engineering occupations to 2024
(Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)
Civil and environmental engineering are anticipated to have some of the largest increases at 8% to 12%. The only unity in careers to degrees sought that appears to exist is the increase in bioengineering with the demand for bioengineering careers. A similar article by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics in 2018, which included 18 engineering disciplines but did not include biomedical engineering, ranked civil engineering as the discipline projected to have the greatest number of new jobs by 2026.
Engineering and the employment of engineers is a market-driven industry like many other careers. As the demand for engineering services is met by the supply of engineers in the workforce, an equilibrium is met.
As the demand in the market increases, the need for more engineers increases, and wage increases typically follow, encouraging more engineers to join the workforce. The ability of first-year college students to anticipate the marketplace, plus the volatility in the market, generally means that the supply of new engineers will overshoot the demand at some point. We see this in the projections for computer science, aerospace, and nuclear engineering. This action and the reactionary system are generally described as the cobweb model. Due to the previously outlined factors and increased demand due to infrastructure spending over the past few years, the market is seeing an increase in demand for engineers to deliver projects. In addition, there’s a need for senior engineers to lead the design teams through these projects.
How we will deliver these projects now and not overshoot the demand for engineers in the future is a major question our industry will need to answer.
(Source: Adapted with permission from https://policonomics.com/cobweb-model/.)
How Can We Evolve?
Recognizing that it takes time to develop the most valuable elements of experience and leadership, our industry needs to create more transparent processes for engineers just below the experience-bottleneck created by the last recession to take responsibility and methods for creating accountability.
This should not be perceived as a one-way street. Where companies take on the risk of giving people opportunities, those people need to be willing to take on responsibility. Additionally, education needs to assist the industry in recognizing that engineers entering the market today need more than just technical skills. Engineers today need foundational education on project planning and leadership to fill in the talent gap in front of them. This talent gap will be resolved with more than time and training. There appears to be a shift in the industry.
At the beginning of this article, engineering was described as a career where you could have a good salary and job security. In the past, this promise came with some assumptions of responsibility, commitment to the work, and dedication to the profession. Over the past five years, there has been a major shift in the industry. Workers want more flexibility and employers who focus on the greater good, not just the bottom line. They also expect higher wages earlier but may be willing to trade off career advancement for work-life balance and well-being.
The hiring market has become more competitive for employers. Talented candidates are almost guaranteed to have several job offers to choose from. The industry needs to become more transparent on what it takes to move up in the company, and more transparency from leadership is also required. As an industry, we need to reevaluate the training and retention models we used in the past. As we try new workforce models like remote working, how do we keep people connected?
One idea used by serval companies is biannual or quarterly gatherings, with all staff in one location, including spouses, and focusing on getting to know your team and their families. Another idea is to slow the brain drain that the industry is seeing through the retirement of baby boomers. The industry needs to consider other work schedules than the 9 to 5 that would allow a retirement-age person to stay on, possibly part-time, for a drop period. During this time, this experienced engineer would provide dedicated and accelerated mentorship to a junior engineer that elected to be part of an intensive project management apprenticeship program. This could move more engineers into these missing leadership positions and, at the same time, slow the demand for engineers to be replaced. Engineering firms can start looking for talent earlier through an apprenticeship program. Local community colleges can create associate in science degree programs (AS) that matriculate to local universities. These programs could produce engineering technicians ready to start as a drafter/designer at an engineering firm. The program AS could include some math level up to passing Calculus 2 and CAD drafting, indicating that the student had a higher chance of finishing an engineering degree. The local company can take this student on in an apprentice program as they pursue an ABET-accredited degree. Possibly even with some financial support if the apprentice commits to proportional years of service. In the long run, this would result in firms retaining staff longer in a volatile market and students at the end of their bachelor’s degrees having vastly more professional experience.
Again, this is not a one-way street; employers need buy-in from the workforce. If employers invest in their workforce, they must see a return on their investment over time. Employees and companies need mutual commitment to the company’s mission statement and success. This mission statement must include the success of the employee. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats, and we need to find ways to work together across generations and industries to solve this talent gap and whatever future challenges we will face.
We can all help meet the challenge by joining others who share our passion for the industry. We all need to spread awareness of the problem among our peers. Together we can ensure “the boats on a rising tide” are filled with professionals taking advantage of the tide to steer their careers and our industry to successful destinations.
Join the Florida Engineering Society and make a difference in our profession.
David Cowan, Jr, PE, ENV SP – Senior Engineer, Chen Moore and Associates
David is a senior engineer at CMA in the West Palm Beach office. David has over 10 years of experience and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in civil engineering with a water resource focus. David specializes in the renovation and design of water/wastewater/stormwater pump facilities and water/wastewater/stormwater conveyance and distribution systems. He also has experience with long term planning projects and capital improvement planning and condition index observations. David serves as a state director for FES, District Director for TBP, and on the Urban Drainage Standards Committee for EWRI.