PHOTO: Fredrik Broden

To bring you this year’s analysis of who’s hiring and who’s firing in the technology in­dustry, IEEE Spectrum teamed up with The New York Times to survey 752 IEEE members about the past, present, and future technological trends they are seeing.

Rather than looking at industry statistics such as sales or market values, we focused on tracking research and development efforts across 19 technological areas as well as academia (for a full list, see the accompanying charts and the sidebar "How We Divided Up The Tech Universe"). We chose this focus because, apart from the fact that R&D is specifically the work many engineers do to earn their living, R&D staffing and spending act as a general bellwether: declining investment in R&D typically indicates an area that isn’t set for high growth or is experiencing commoditization of its products and the attendant squeezing of profit margins.

Overall, the news is encouraging for the tech industry, albeit not spectacular. Looking back on the last two years, 31.1 percent of 482 respondents reported they had seen increases in R&D staff at their organizations, 32.0 percent reported steady staffing levels, and 25.9 percent reported drops. Looking forward to the next 12 months, members found the picture more optimistic: of 492 respondents, 33.3 ­percent predicted increases in R&D staffing at their organizations, 37.2 percent reported no change, and 15.2 percent predicted declines, with 14.2 percent responding “don’t know.” Those working in Prepackaged Software (software that is sold “as is,” such as Microsoft Office) and Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) were the most bullish, with 13 out of 29 and 26 out of 58 respondents, respectively, predicting R&D staffing increases.

Surprisingly, then, when we asked our survey participants which area they would recommend to an engineering student interested in an R&D career, Prepackaged Software and OEM ended up near the bottom of the list (Storage and Consumer Computers tied for last place, with just one vote each out of 646 respondents). Instead, practically tying for first place were Biomedical and Wireless/Mobile technologies, with 103 and 102 votes apiece; Energy came in third with 95 votes. A further 85 survey takers recommended pursuing an R&D career in academia, without specifying an area.

We also took a detailed look at outsourcing to see where those R&D jobs might be going, geographically speaking. Despite the perception that Asia is sucking up all the available R&D jobs, the real picture is more balanced, with 48.9 percent of U.S.-based and 46.6 ­percent of European respondents saying their organizations did no R&D work offshore. This doesn’t look set to change dramatically: when asked if they expected that their organization would outsource R&D in the next two years, either within their country or outside it, 46 percent of 366 respondents said no, 38 percent didn’t know, and just 16 ­percent said yes.