[PeterParker]

Current students might want to change their major in light of this news (maybe a petroleum engineering track surfaces soon ... :

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_ ... g_shortage

Companies scramble to hire engineers

By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer Sun Sep 2, 2:23 PM ET

HOUSTON - So much for sweating out that first job after college. Like star athletes, engineering students Julie Arsenault and Emily Reasor are prized prospects for the energy industry, which is experiencing dizzying demand for engineers.

Bustling oilfield activity and retiring baby boomers, among other factors, have petroleum outfits large and small trying to hire thousands of engineers, and experts say the trend is expected to extend into the next decade as worldwide energy demand grows...

...Management consulting firm Oliver Wyman says roughly eight in 10 global oil and gas companies forecast a shortage of petroleum engineers through at least 2011. The American Petroleum Institute said U.S. energy companies will need at least another 5,000 engineers by decade's end....

...The shortage of engineers has been caused in part by the upsurge in exploration and a wave of retirements from baby boomers who have spent 25 to 30 years on the job...

...API says low college enrollment in petroleum engineering and other majors that support the oil and gas business also is to blame — in part because of the industry's reputation as an unreliable employer...

...After U.S. oilfield employment peaked at 860,000-plus in 1982, companies slashed more than 500,000 jobs over the next 18 years as oil prices per barrel plummeted to the low teens — compared with prices hovering around $70 a barrel today...

...But college enrollment numbers are improving as the industry aggressively touts the potential for challenging work, exotic postings and starting annual salaries at $70,000 or higher...

The number of undergraduate students studying petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University has jumped from 191 in 2001 to 507 last fall, including 52 students at a new satellite campus in Qatar. A&M's petroleum engineering school, one of the nation's largest, had 1,422 undergraduates in 1982...

[shukcb04]

engineers are being offshored at a higher than average rate, India is going to the bank on that. but of course they don't tell you that until they decide to take you 70k salary and send your job overseas so someone who only gets paid 20k can do your job for you, and in a lot of cases faster and better. thats if this book i read by the mckinsey global institutde research firm i read is correct.

[Sly Fox]

Recruiting is the biggest challenge for the Big Oil companies that I work with here in Houston. Petroleum has an unfair reputation for being low tech so the sharpest minds are looking elsewhere. So moeny is practically no objevct to attract engineers right now.