this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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There is also an education gap. For whatever reason, this type of work is considered extremely niche in North America and even if 100% of local ECE graduates were hired there would still be both a labour and skill shortage.
Also the majority of the people in the local education programs I've seen are also studying from abroad, so they need a visa once they graduate to actually do the work.
Its odd, since it is such a strategic industry, that there is not a more clear strategy here beyond just hiring abroad to fill the massive gaps.
In some ways these companies benefit from the extra power they have over their workers when they depend on employment for their right to stay in the country, but eventually the companies just end up looking like a less promising risk to take versus just going to work in other countries.
It's considered extremely niche because the west was happy to outsource what they thought of as low value work (at least it was viewed this way historically).
The entry level work is definitely considered low value, and I can see why, but I don't think it's any different than a first year accountant or lawyer for example.
Of course the big accounting firms are also starting to rely on outsourcing and foreign hiring strategies but semiconductor has been doing this for 25+ years already.
And accounting is not really a strategic sector
crucial for developing advanced businesses, high value consumer products, and military technologies...
Its a big missed opportunity that will affect the west for decades to come.
Engineering (esp. electronic) is out of fashion with the current generation coming through higher education, and I think most of it is down to the industry being seen as magic in the high school period.
At the time I came through, to use high technology you needed to understand it to some level. Now, you don't need to know anything. Interviewing students for internships now, you find that people are only getting exposed to the basics of digital electronics at university and suddenly this whole world of opportunities appears in front of them. This is after they are already on the course though. We're missing out on so many potential engineers who go do different things because they have zero concept of how anything works, and what they might be able to do in the industry.
There's no reason a 12yo can't build simple digital logic circuits except that they're not exposed to it.
Some 12yo's discover it through things like Minecraft and arguably that's the best time to start.
If someone put a "Redstone circuits" unit in a general science class in grade 7, and spent just one day talking about the real-world applications think it would be a success.
Yet, most of the people crying about "foreigners coming in to steal American jobs" through H1B and other types of visas are often not intelligent enough or educated enough to take these jobs and are unwilling to change the education system to provide financial aid for the education of people who do have the brains to take these jobs.