 Calendar
of Events
Chairman's
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Chapter
Meetings:- Comments
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PACE
SCOOP
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IEEE
Orlando Section
Monthly
https://www.ieee.org/orlando/
PACE
(Professional Activities
Committee for Engineers)
- Region 3 PACE Coordinator's
Report
- 10/31/03
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- The top priority for PACE remains gathering support
for the IEEE-USA position on H-1B (holding the guest
worker quota cap at 65,000) and communicating member
comments to their elected congressional representatives
in support of the Johnson-Dodd bills, which offer
reasonable restraints on both H-1B and L-1 visas. See
the special compilation of events, actions, and
testimonies on the H-1B issue, "America's High Tech
Workforce," at https://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/issues/H1bvisa/index.html
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- Other public policy priority issues for IEEE-USA are
found at https://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/issues/
and constituent letters concerning priority legislative
issues can be sent from https://www.capwiz.com/ieeeusa/home/
including H-1B, Senate action on national nanotechnology
legislation, Grassroots support needed to stop
unsolicited commercial e-mail, Support needed for
aviation research funding bill (Research and Development
Provision in Jeopardy), and on help needed to pass
electricity reliability legislation this year (Engineers
need to speak out on this vital reform issue).
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- For those who care whether or not the engineering
profession has a voice in public policy, IEEE-USA
extends an invitation to join CARE, IEEE-USA's team of
grassroots volunteers. See https://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/care/
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- Third quarter unemployment rates, provided by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, are:
- Engineering managers 8.0%
- Computer and information system managers 5.5%
- Computer hardware engineers 6.9%
- Electrical and electronics engineers 6.7%
- Computer scientists and systems analysts 4.8%
- Computer software engineers 4.6%
- Aerospace engineers 4.0%
- Computer programmers 7.1%
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- The number employed in EE/Computer occupations
(including managers) totals 3,777,000. The number
unemployed is 235,000 -- but that number does not include
"discouraged workers" who have not sought a job in the
previous month. Laid-off engineers who are now teaching
to make mortgage payments are counted as employed
teachers, not as unemployed engineers. In Orlando,
volunteers who helped out at a recent IEEE technical
conference included a recent grad with interests in
biomedical engineering, and a MS with ten years'
experience in telecom, instrumentation, and power
engineering. Neither has been able to find a job. I
found recently that a carpet salesman I was dealing with
had a MS in mechanical engineering.
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- The newly coined "Engineers' Misery Factor" defines
the unused man-years of engineering talent in the U.S.
from the median number of weeks that are required to find
a new position (38 weeks, in the latest survey of
unemployed IEEE members). The Factor currently stands at
172,000 man-years (again, not counting discouraged
engineers).
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- This Factor represents productive skills that are
going unused, that are not aiding U.S. competitiveness in
a global market place, that are not contributing to the
economy through purchases and consumption that would
occur if jobs were available, and tax revenues not
collected on foregone salaries (salaries that could total
$12.9 billion, at $75K per man-year). Also foregone are
Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, and
unemployment and workers' compensation premiums that
would be paid by employers.
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- Demand for new grads remains weak; it fell 36% in
2002 and is about at the same level in 2003. See the
news story, "Class of '03 caught in a jobs crunch," at
https://www.jobbankusa.com/News/Jobs/jobs61203b.html
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- Nationwide average salary offers for new grads (Fall,
2003) are $49,794 for EEs (down 1.2% in a year), $47,109
for CS (down 4.7% in a year) and $51,343 for Computer
engineers (up 0.4% in a year).
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- A PACE program on these and other engineering career
issues is available to sections. It was presented last
week to the Tallahassee section (see Dr. Bruce Harvey's
section report). Contact the undersigned to schedule
it.
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- A Government Activities Committee for the six U.S.
regions is being organized, to aid with grassroots
efforts affecting issues at the state level, including
licensure and Opposing Adoption of the Uniform Computer
Information Transaction Act (UCITA) by the states.
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- Separately, Northrop Grumman has issued a call for
2,000 software engineers. As further details on
locations and experience requirements are available, they
will be disseminated.
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- George F
McClure, Reg. 3 PACE Coordinator
- 1730 Shiloh Ln
- Winter Park, FL 32789
- Ph. 407-647-5092
- Fax 407-644-4076
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