Between the Poles

Canada C-Suite Survey: Most companies reporting difficulty finding engineers and skilled trades

The Gandalf Group conducts a quarterly C-Suite survey of corporate executives across Canada sponsored by KPMG.  151 C-level executives were interviewed between February 10th and 27th, 2012.

Labour challenges

The survey found that most of the companies are reporting difficulty in finding qualified employees and that for a segment of companies it’s a very acute concern. About a third report the labour shortage is preventing their company from growing.  Even more said they increasingly have to look outside of Canada to fill specific jobs. Engineers, those with technical skills or trades people and some IT professionals are top mentions of positions or skills that are difficult to find.

48% of respondents said that they expected the Canadian economy to have a greater percentage of skilled workers than today.

70% aggreed that labour shortages stand to get much worse for companies because of baby boomers' retirement.

Budget priorities

The survey questions about the Federal budget demonstrate how central labour market questions are to the repondents. 

The number one priority is increased investment in skills training.  Even among the minority who want aggressive deficit reduction, about one in three identified increased investments in skills training as a high priority.  Western Canadian executives tended to add fast-tracking applications from skilled immigrants as something the government must make a priority.

Class of 2011 engineering graduates lead in starting salaries

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducts an annual survey of starting salaries of U.S. college graduates by compiling data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and a master data set developed by Job Search Intelligence.

The Salary Survey for 2012 for the college class of 2011 found that the average starting salary is $41,701,  2.3 percent higher than the Class of 2010 average. In addition the survey found that average salaries have increased across all the sectors that the survey monitors.

engineering graduates had the highest average starting salary $61,872 which perhaps reflects the increasing shortage that is facing many sectors of engineering, especially utilities, as experienced engineers retire at an increasing rate.

Autodesk University Virtual November 29-30

Next week is Autodesk University in Las Vegas, which I am looking forward to especially for the utility-related courses and labs.  But if you can't be there is person, 200 classes in English, Spanish, and Portuguese are available on-line November 29-30 on Autodesk University Virtual. More than 150 more classes go live on November 29.  After the event, AU Virtual classes will continue to be available on the AU website.

AU Virtual is free to everyone.  You can register here.

Preparing for increasing urbanizatian in Malaysia

Malaysia expects that 70% of its inhabitants will be living in urban environments by 2020.  Last year Malaysia released its 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), which focuses on developing infrastructure to improve productivity and making the private sector the engine of development.  The target is to make Malaysia a high income economy through productivity growth. One of the reasons the government wants to encourage urbanization is international empirical evidence that cities have three times the productivity of rural areas.  MP10 identifies 12 National Key Economic Areas  (NKEA), most of which are sectoral, but one of which is Malaysia's largest urban centre Greater Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian economy has been very successful in the past, but primarily because it has been a low cost economy.  The Malaysian electrical and electronics industry, which is known worldwide for inexpensive digital components, is responsible for 26.1% of manufacturing output and
more than 40% of total manufacturing labour.

According to MP10, the Malaysian economy needs to improve productivity, by upskilling the existing work force to facilitate industries to move up the value chain, enabling specialization and economies of scale, and increasing public investment in innovation, particularly R&D and venture capital funding especially through shared risk public-private partnerships.  The government has created a RM 20 billion (US$ 6 billion) Facilitation Fund that it hopes will attract RM 200 billion (US$60 billion) in private capital.  ICT is a major area of focus for improving productiivity.  ICT accounted for 9.8% of GDP in 2009 and is targeted to increase to 10.2% by 2015.

The MP10 focusses on development of infrastructure specifically housing, transportation, energy, water resources and sustainability.  Major initiatives include increasing broadband penetration, upgrading transportation networks, ensuring a secure and reliable energy supply including increasing renewable energy, developing a long-term strategy for water resource management and restructuring the water services industry, protecting rivers from pollution, adaptation to protect Malaysia from the risks of climate change, and reducing Malaysia’s carbon footprint.  I blogged previously about Malaysia's recent introduction of a feed-in tariff program to encourage renewable energy and TNB's smart grid plans to support distributed generation.

The MP10 sees environmental management as an incipient industry with substantial growth potential in green technology which could spin off new categories of professionals and new areas of specialization for architectural and engineering services.

The plan identifies 52 high impact infrastructure projects worth RM 63 billion including

• Seven toll highways - RM 19 billion
• Two coal-fired power plants - RM 7 billion
• Malaysian Rubber Board land development  - RM 10 billion
• Electrified double track rail project – RM 8 billion
• Waste water treatment plant using green technology in Lembah Pantai
• Roads, electricity, water supply, and communication networks to rural areas
• Construction of 76,000 affordable houses

Gridweek: IEEE PES program offers scholarships and hands-on experience to power engineers students

I've blogged on multiple occasions, most recently here and here,  about the workforce challenges facing the utility industry in the world's advanced economies.  At today's Gridweek lunch session, Pat Ryan of the IEEE PES said that 50% of US power engineers will be eligible to retire in five years.  He referred to the 2009 IEEE PES Workforce Collaborative Report that made six recommendations for preparing the next generation of power engineers.  Two of the recommendations were

• double the number of power engineering undergraduates
• stimulate educational programs for power engineeering

Today he announced the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus initiative to respond to these recommendations. IEEE PES is offering a program that includes scholarships, hands-on experience during university, and mentoring for power engineering students.  This is an additive program designed to complement other scholarship programs.  In the first year the IEEE PES plans to offer 94 scholarships, but intends to ramp this up to 1500 scholarships a year.

 

Engineering and science university enrollment up in Ontario

With 90,029 confirmed registrations, Ontario has reached a new record for the number of incoming undergraduates according to the Ontario Universities' Application Centre. Enrollment in Ontario has been increasing every year since 2004 and the Council on Ontario Universities has suggested that an increase in workforce demand has been driving the increasing enrollment. (2003 was a unique year in Ontario as the province switched to a 12 year from a 13 year high school schedule.)

In Ottawa job-focused programs, such as science and engineering and business programs in particular, are seeing increasing enrollment.  Carleton University has seen an enrolment jump for the bachelor of computer science, bachelor of information technology, engineering and sciences programs.  Carleton has introduced new programs including a bachelor of engineering in architectural conservation and sustainability, new commerce concentrations in supply chain management and entrepreneurship and a bachelor of computer science mobile computing stream.  At the University of Ottawa life sciences, engineering and health sciences are the most popular in terms of the number of applications and the number accepted.

Science and engineering enrollment up in the UK

As I have blogged recently, advanced economies are facing a shortage of skilled labour.  This is partly the result of an aging workforce, but also results from decreasing enrollment in technical courses at the high school, vocational institute, community college and university levels.  With the respect to the latter probelm, there appears to be signs of a change in the UK.

According to the BBC, in the UK applications for all university courses are up, but science and engineering courses are especially popular.  Applications for physics courses at university are up by more than 17% over last year.  Recently published statistics also show that in 2011 the the number of students studying A-level physics has increased by over 6%.  This represents the fifth consecutive year that of increase.  According to the Institute of Physics physics is among the top ten most popular subjects for the first time since 2002.

But in the last decade enrollment in mathematics and science has been down significantly in the UK.  A comparison of 24 countries showed that England, Wales, and Northern Ireland were the only ones in which fewer than 20% of students study mathematics post-16.  40% of companies are reported as saying that they are having difficulty recruiting people with science, technology, engineering and maths skills.

GITA ANZ 2011: Skills workshop on addressing the workforce shortage

At the GITA ANZ Geospatial Solutions Conference Ken Lyons organized a skills workshop on addressing the workforce challengs, specifically in the area of geospatial skills including surveying.

• Dr Ken Lyons – Spatial Info Services – Examining the skilled workforce supply chain –Queensland findings
• Mr George Havakis – People for Business Pty. Ltd.- A recruiter’s perspective 
• Ms Lynnette Terrett  - Rapidmap –Destination Spatial Committee - Victorian Taskforce experience
• Mr Geoff Zeiss – Autodesk (Canada), Director of Technology – International trends and perspectives

According to Ken Lyons, the labour shortage in this sector is severe in Queensland and getting worse.  One of the causes of the problem is the aging of the labour force.  Related challenges are attracting new entrants and the rapidly increasing demand, especially for technicians.  Demand for professionals is also increasing, but not as rapidly as for technicians. 

The challenge of atracting new entrants is reflected in university-level spatial courses being undersubscribed which has resulted in some geospatial courses being discontinued.  Lynnette Terrett described an initiative called Destination Spatial that is intended to attract more entrants into geospatial technology, especially from among Generation Y.

30-40 % of electric power workers leaving industry by 2013 drives new community college and university programs

According to a recent report Task Force on America's Future Energy Jobs at the Bipartisan Policy Center, it is estimated rhat 30 to 40 percent of the 400,000 people employed in electricity generation, transmission and distribution are expected to retire or leave the industry by 2013.  It is estimated that 60,000 additional workers will be needed by 2030 to operate and maintain renewable electric generation systems. In the near term, it is estimated that more than 90,000 people will be needed to deploy smart grid technologies.

Replacing retiring workers plus new workers for renewable energy and smart grid initatives is expected to generate a "jobs bonanza" for the next generation of electric power workers. Traditional apprenticeship and other routes for preparing these new workers are increasingly seen as either too time sonsuming or not appropriate for preparing workers for the the new smart and renewable energy electric power networks that are replacing the existing power grid.

In response to the demand for computer savvy technicians a growing number of universities and community colleges are customizing degree programs to train electrical power workers to handle both conventional  electric power and renewable and smart grid networks.  For example, Richmond Community College (RCC) in Hamlet, N.C. is teaming up with area utilities to develop a two-year associate's degree in utility substation and relay technology. The college plans to provide training for students in operating and maintaining the current and next generation fleet of  substations.  Apparently the idea for the education initiative began when Progress Energy approached the school with concerns that in the normal process new inexperienced hires required up to five years of training to become relay technicians, which Progess Energy saw as too protracted a process to keep up with the rate at which experienced workers are retiring.

The task force report encourages Congress to apply existing educational funding tools such as the Post 9/11 GI Bill and Pell Grants toward vocational and skilled training programs. The report laso suggests an aggressive focus on improving math and science skills in K-12 education.

As another example, York Technical College in Rock Hill, South Carolina has partnered with Duke Energy and other area power companies to develop a nine-week certificate program for specialized electrical line workers.

South Carolina joined eight other states in a Center for Energy Workforce Development initiative (funded by $1.3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to train low-income, young adults for energy industry careers.  The focus on attracting low income, young adults is simialr to what City West Water in Melbourne, Australia implemented in their cadet program.

3D Is Helping Address the Aging Workforce Challenge

One of my takeaways from the annual GITA ANZ 2010 conference in Brisbane earlier this year was from Graeme Anthonsen's presentation in which he outlined the cadet program that City West Water has implemented to attract and train replacements for the experienced water and sewer network designers that are retiring and leaving the company at a rapid rate.  If I remember correctly, City West Water brought twelve young people from high schools into the cadet program last year, and have brought nine more in this year.  A recent article describes initiatives at Toronto Hydro, Duke Energy, and other utilities who are setting up programs for workforce development and training for existing and new employees in the same spirit as what Graeme Anthonsen has done at City West Water.

 Earlier this year when I had a chance to speak to a group at the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL), I asked whether they were experiencing a manpower problem.  The response was unanimous and indicated this was a major challenge in the power utility industry in Brazil.  Similarly when I spoke at the Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas (IIE) during my last visit to Mexico, I asked the same question.  The response was similar and specifically identified a shortage of electrical engineers.  According to a recent report by the U.S. Power and Energy Engineering Workforce Collaborative, over the next five years 45 percent of engineers in electric utilities will be eligible for retirement or could leave engineering for other reasons.  In the same period some 50 senior faculty members of the 170 engineering faculty working full‐time in power engineering education and research in the US will be retiring.  A report Workforce Trends In the Electric Utility Industry by the US Department of Energy, has forecast a serious shortage of line workers in the US.

There are two trends at work here.  One is what is referred to as the shrinking or aging workforce, which is affecting many of the world's advanced economies.  In countries like Germany and Japan, the population is aging and shrinking.  In others such as the US, the participation rate has declined as life expectancy has increased.  The result is a shrinking workforce.  The problem is exacerbated in the utility industry, where the average age of utility workers in many advanced economies is over 50.  The second challenge is that as we expand and replace our existing electric and other utility networks with renewable energy and intelligent networks (smart grids), new skills, especially digital technology skills, are required.

The challenge that utilities are facing is how to attract and retain younger workers in what is becoming an increasingly competitive market place.  What I am seeing is that 3D technology can help.  The net generation is conversant with communications, media, and digital technologies and in particular have been brought up with gaming technology, PSPs, XBoxes, and Wiis. Many modern 3D design applications, which use the same 3D visualization tools that were developed for the gaming industry, provide an environment that is much more familiar and stimulating for the millennial generation, who may perceive traditional 2D design as something left over from the dark ages.  In the last few months I have come across several utilities who are finding that for this reason 3D engineering design technology can contribute to attracting and retaining younger workers.