The age of engineers

In the past few decades, there is a shift in people wanting to work from the engineering industry to the business industry. This perhaps is due to the rise of capitalism in conjunction with globalisation. This shift brought rise to a need in executives in the business sector, especially the finance industry.

However, the sub-prime crisis has brought about changes in financial organisations and the global financial industry. In order to survive, banks cut cost, with makes up a stronghold of human capital. The financial organisations restructure to be more efficient even though they are monopolistic in nature, which can be seen by their enormous profit making abilities out of the ordinary.

So why do I say that its the age of engineers?
Be it civil, chemical or electrical engineering, this is a age of rapid infrastructure expansion and infrastructure efficiency improvement. Infrastructure is needed in every country in order to promote economic growth in the long term. However, this age of short-term profits mentality, which can be seen in the sub-prime crisis, has brought about a lack in infrastructure spendings. This lack of spending is due to the unattractive returns that it will bring. Investors rationally seeks the best returns to their risk appetitte. Infrastructure in not exciting and growth is limited.

However, this is about to change. Economic profits in other industries such as consumer cyclicals are experiencing a squeeze in margins. In order to continue to grow, countries need to use their surplus or borrow to have an expansion in infrastructure. A recent example is India, allocating a large amount for infrastructure development. In Singapore, to cope with its relatively small land area, mass rapid transit are expanding rapidly to meet demand in the transportation industry where roads are seemingly overburdened by the large vehicle ownership. The Straits Times today reported that the CTE will be extended with an extra lane each in both directions.

With this rise in infrastructure spending that is a necessity. Engineers are in demand for the next 2 decades and more. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Harvard and Yale are expanding their engineering faculty in anticipation of rising demand for engineers.

Those that are in the engineering sector or will be are in a ride for good times ahead. Those that think that the financial sector will still be a hot sector will be in disappointment.

Look at what the media and university advertisements created, an influx of business students. I'm one of them.