How to Solve the Engineering Talent Shortage in Florida

It seems that soon businesses and startups will start a cruel battle for engineers due to talent shortage. In Florida, they know how the problem can be solved! Discover further.

Nowadays, the engineering sector is struggling with extremely low unemployment rates together with the industry’s powerful contribution to economic growth. The outcome is the tightest engineering labor market in the recent decade. However, the root that triggers the world-class engineers shortage goes deeper.

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Reasons for an Engineering Talent Shortage in the US

Before you reveal the solutions to the problem, you should know what factors have caused it. Meet all of them below.

Immigration Decrease

In Florida, the STEM personnel has long been a location for a great number of skillful foreign-born engineers. According to AIC, it is nearly 22 percent. However, in 2021, the amount of international students has decreased to 15 percent as a result of modifications in visa regulation. Moreover, while big holdings in the engineering industry in Florida have always been the greatest investors of H-1B visas for foreign employees, that quantity has also decreased. Businesses are left to address local engineering talent, which is a far smaller scope of engineering experts.

Workforce Aging

Global experts suppose that about 31 percent of engineers in the industry will retire in 2024-2028. In Florida, ambitious Baby Boomers leave to search for better career opportunities, taking their skills and experience with them. In Florida, many companies not only lack relevant succession scheduling and skills transfer strategies, but they simply don’t have enough talent pool to manage the gap.

STEM Interest Decrease

In 2021, the number of young men (17-19 years old) concerned with a STEM career fell from 31 percent to 22 percent (in Florida) while the number of young women of the same age has remained at only 9 (!) percent. According to numerous surveys, only 4 in 20 parents recommend their children to make careers in engineering. As a result, global experts state that this negative perception of the engineering industry is the key reason for this apathy.

About 42 percent of surveyed Florida citizens suggest that engineering careers are exciting, rewarding, stable, and safe. With such a somber perception of the industry, it is not surprising why hiring in engineering is declining.

Approaches to Resolve the Talent Shortage in California

In the US, top engineering businesses (a big number is from Florida) are already working on efficient solutions to cope with the talent shortage. These involve the following:

• Upgrading employees. In Florida, 41 percent of businesses and startups report that they intend to initiate reskilling or upgrading among current engineering employees. Most probably, they decided to follow the practice of Amazon. In 2020, the last announced a strong initiative to upgrade more than 100 thousand American staff by 2027, accentuating cloud/software engineering and machine learning;
• Reconsidering training for engineers. In the US, about 87 percent of HR personnel support removing the 4-year degree requirement for engineering roles. They cherish tech apprenticeships as a good variant. Businesses in Florida started training employees without university degrees for engineering jobs and informing them about career opportunities.

Apprenticeships are gaining momentum in Florida as well (according to the novel National Apprenticeship Act). The Act invests above 2 billion to encourage apprenticeship programs in engineering;

• Support in revising national immigration policy. Regarding this aspect, businesses and startups in Florida take lessons from Google. In 2021, the company released an amicus brief to establish a work permit for the thousands of professionals whose partners possess H-1B visas. The last is a traditional practice in the tech industry.

This solution took time to bring to life but it already started to bear fruit. This practice is acknowledged as one of the most successful to battle engineering talent shortage as well as maintaining a big scope of potential workers.

One immediate approach they can take to the reduced talent shortage in Florida is getting extremely creative in their benefits. Here, they mean suggesting the flexibility of remote work. Many businesses and startups in California have already found that more than 80 percent of engineers search for a hybrid working model.

According to the research by LinkedIn in 2021, in the engineering industry in Florida, remote work jobs have risen to 322 percent. Companies that can’t offer a remote work mode won’t be able to hire the required engineering talent.

The Covid-19 pandemic modified nearly every business or startup into a tech company in Florida. Though the competition is severe for top tech talent, companies should immediately initiate preparing the groundwork to attract only the best engineering candidates.