US Engineers paid more than other professionals
By Shalini Singh

Even as outsourcing and recession result in job losses and salary cuts in USA, American engineers (with Bachelors degrees) still get paid more than local economists, accountants and most in the medical profession.  In fact, American Aerospace, Chemical, Computer and Electrical engineers lead the starting and mid career salaries among all professions. 

Washington-based PayScale describes itself as “a market leader in global online compensation data. With the world's largest database of individual employee compensation profiles, PayScale provides an immediate and precise snapshot of the job market. Our patent-pending real-time profiling system indexes custom employee attributes (such as industry-specific certifications) and specific job titles for every industry.”

PayScale research is widely quoted in traditional as well as new media.  Their research released this week showed that American Aerospace engineers are at the top and have a starting median salary of $59,600 which increases to $109,000 when they reach mid-careers.  Chemical engineers start with $65,700 and their mid-career median salary is $107,000.  Third are Computer Engineers who start with $61,700 and work their way upto an average of $105,000. Every other profession is lower on the pay scale.

Careers like medicine and law which require further study were not included in this research. What has to be kept in mind is that this study was done on people who already have jobs.

At the bottom of the list are Education, Horticulture, Spanish, Music, Theology, Elementary Education and Social Work. Most of these men and women start off in the mid 30,000 and work their way upto mid $50,000. Sadly, most countries in the world pay their teachers and social workers very basic compensation.

This report certainly comes as a surprise to many people in USA who feel they are losing their jobs to engineers being imported from countries like China and India. Don’t be surprised if NASSCOM picks up this report to make a point that outsourcing does not mean the end of jobs and money in USA.