Jobs hold degree of importance
Electrical engineers in high demand, have choices in metro employment market
While the region’s unemployment rate has now surpassed 8 percent for 56 straight months, there are signs the job market is heating up for those with the right skills, training and college degrees.
“Now is a wonderful time to be an electrical engineer,” said Eric Welch, dean of engineering at Christian Brothers University in Memphis.
In June, the jobless rate nationwide for people with bachelor’s degrees or higher and at least 25 years old was 4.2 percent. In contrast, the overall U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in June and 7.4 percent in July.
Seven CBU students graduated in the spring with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineer-
Companies seem to think they can hire anybody they want with no trouble. It’s not there anymore.”
Eddy Hatcher, owner of Management Recruiters of Cordova, Inc.
ing and all seven are employed, Welch said.
A 2012 wage survey by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development found 270 electrical engineers in the Memphis metro area. Starting out, they made an average of about $58,510 a year, while the average salary for those with experience was more than $84,000 a year.
That’s a stark contrast to jobs requiring less training. Pay for every worker in Greater Memphis averages about $40,700 per year, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
And in many cases, wages are under pressure, particularly in blue-collar fields. It’s happening throughout the nation.
United States household income averages $52,098, down 4.4 percent since the recession was declared over in June 2009. And since 2000, average U. S. household income, when adjusted for inflation, has plunged 7.2 percent, according to Sentier Research of Annapolis, Md.
A legion of people looking for jobs contributes to the slide. In Greater Memphis, for example, employers filled 604,200 jobs in July, about 7,000 more than a year earlier, but that’s still 35,000 fewer jobs than just before the recession came on in 2007.
The Memphis metro area includes Shelby, Fayette and Tipton counties in Tennessee, along with the Mississippi counties of Marshall, Tunica and DeSoto, and Crittenden County in Arkansas.
The unemployment rate in Shelby County, home to about half the 1.3 million residents of the metro area, in July dipped to 9.8 percent from 10.3 percent in June.
With lots of job seekers, there’s little pressure on managers to raise pay — a reason the 33,000 retail clerks and cashiers in metro Memphis average about $19,000 in annual wages, while the 700 nuclear engineers average $115,000 and 1,000 industrial engineers make $79,000, according to a BLS report.
The differences in pay show some fields are more resistant to wage cuts. People with college degrees in science, technology, engineering or math — the socalled STEM fields — generally earn more money.
A National Association of College and Employers survey, cited by Forbes magazine last January, found that six of the top 10 degrees were in engineering, topped by computer engineering.
“A STEM, or quantitative degree advantage, it’s basically double the starting salary of your general liberal arts degrees,” Welch said.
As the owner of Management Recruiters of Cordova Inc., Eddy Hatcher links engineers with companies looking to fill positions, particularly in manufacturing.
Good electrical engineers are hard to find right now and he sees companies taking too long to make hiring decisions, like one that took three weeks and found that the engineer had taken one of four other offers.
“Companies seem to think they can hire anybody they want with no trouble,” Hatcher said. “It’s not there anymore.”
He points to statistics from the Institute of Supply Management that show growth in manufacturing industries.
Engineers who may have sheltered in place during the Great Recession may be more willing to risk taking a better job elsewhere.
High-profile manufacturers, including Electrolux and Mitsubishi opening plants in Memphis, are bringing new opportunities, but Welch said graduates have also gone to firms such as Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division, FedEx, ThyssenKrupp Elevator and Microsoft.
Cellphone and hybrid or electric car industries are examples of those with growing demand for electrical engineers, he said.
“There’s all kinds of jobs,” Welch said.
CONTACTING THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT