Engineers in China: Reality vs. Sensationalism

Despite my experiences overseas, I have fallen prey to China-mania
factoids on occasion.  I thought the media had moved on from the competition issues between Chinese and US engineers, but I still
hear questions and comments whenever China comes up in conversation and
continue to explain that

1. the swelling stats of new Chinese engineers are misleading
2. foreign companies operating in China
   are likely to have very different experiences depending on a number of
   factors, R&D included. 

China Law Blog wrote a post about an article published in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled "Innovation, China Style".  The author, Thomas Hout of Boston Consulting Group’s HK office, writes about the challenges China faces in trying to build an innovation economy based on world-class R&D.  It’s nice to see the mainstream media work to rein in a big, China-mania factoid that has been haunting policymakers, businesses, engineers, and your average American (maybe this last one is too optimistic) for the last few years.  It has been reported by both Chinese and US organizations that anywhere
from 250,000 to 600,000 engineers are graduating from China’s
universities per year.  This number compares to our graduation of
approximately 70,000 to 130,000 per year.  Business publications,
newspapers, and books have highlighted this six-digit number repeatedly for several years as evidence of China’s emerging capabilities
and imminent surge onto the world stage as a leading engineering and R&D resource.

As usual, there is more to the story behind the stats of new engineers in China.  A few observations:

• the grand sum of 250,000+ graduates accounts for engineers of all kinds—civil, software, mechanical, electrical, and so on.  Many of them are civil and mechanical engineers who will spend a great deal of time in China’s interior and western regions building infrastructure. 

• Although multinational corporations have been able to attract and retain the best in a one billion population—making for world-class talent, in my experience, the same cannot be assumed of the vast majority of Chinese firms.  From a ground level perspective, I’ve witnessed many Chinese firms hurting from an inability to find and keep good engineering talent.

• I am not alone.  I recently listened to a panel of speakers at the Asia America Multi-Technology Association’s
  China Connect Conference, and listened to similar human resources woes
  of middle-sized US firms setting up shop and operating in China.

One particular example that comes to mind is my experience with a trade company in Shenzhen this year.  The company spent months advertising for new engineers with no results.  They had serious difficulties finding solid engineers, and had even more difficulty keeping them in the organization for an extended period of time.  The engineers we did work with were typically young and were often lured away by other companies offering more ‘lucrative’ opportunities.  Some projects proceeded smoothly.  With others, it seemed that progress was impossible without routine supervision.  We might spend three hours in one sitting, communicating the details of a project, after which we felt confident about the progress that should result.  Upon following up the next day, we’d find our project stood in line behind three others.  In the end, we found that it was very difficult to predict how quickly progress on a given project could be made, particularly if we weren’t there in person to prod people along.  Having this kind of transparency into a company’s HR situation is very helpful in situations like this, because we can always pull and go to another vendor if we know what we’re up against beforehand.  But it’s also very time intensive for the already-stretched smaller organization.

The simple fact is that even though hundreds of thousands of engineers are graduating every year, attracting and retaining solid engineering talent somehow continues to be a challenge for many US and Chinese firms in China.  This reality-check isn’t meant to dissuade you from enlisting the help of Chinese engineers, as the benefits of working with the right organizations that manage to keep a sufficient number of qualified engineers in their ranks are many.  Instead, this sobering dose of reality is meant to illuminate and pull back into focus some of the fear, protectionism, and irrational exuberance that big, hairy, six-digit numbers can evoke.  Smaller companies are advised to get a handle on the engineering department of their overseas partners.  And, if you’re an engineer in the U.S. and you’re worried, don’t be too alarmed by all the hype.  Do continue your education, job responsibilities, and growing sense of innovation.