I have been playing with the GIS and the list of?ÿ Registrants of Massachusetts data.
In summary: we have 836 Surveyors Registered in Massachusetts living all over the US.?ÿ In 2006 we have 1270.?ÿ Of the 836, only 653 live in Massachusetts.?ÿ A good number live in the neighboring states and possibly work in Mass, but how many of the Registrants in Maine teach at UMaine??ÿ (At least one...)?ÿ A bunch of those surveyors living anywhere are retired (10 in Florida).?ÿ I know 4 on Cape Cod who are retired and one in NH.?ÿ The VP of MALSCE (The association) said the stats have returned at +3 / -20 per year for a net of -17 active surveyors per year but in the past 13 years we have an average of -33 a year based on the 1270 to 836 number.
About half of our current Registrants have been registered for 28 years or more and about 3/4 have been registered for about 24 years or more.?ÿ If the average registrant works for 40 years we have 12-16 years before we are faced with a real big problem.?ÿ I am curious as to what the critical mass is...?ÿ?ÿ
I may be planning to bring a small book of all of the Registrants Names to the next convention to gather more data.?ÿ It would be good to know who is retired, who works for Town/State, who works in the private sector, etc...?ÿ Any thoughts on other data I can get from the 1/4 of Registrants who will attend the Convention?
https://www.ese-llc.com/surveyor-stats/regional-data
This should be considered a desirable event so I cannot figure out why you would be worried? It is common knowledge that wages for surveying is depressed so if surveyors have any business sense they should be welcoming a shortage and be ever vigilant and begin right now raising their prices.
All things will self correct once wages rise and it becomes a profession worth entering into where a person can make decent money but as it stands right now we have far too many surveyors competing for the same piece of the pie. Pay them and they will come.
Flame on.
Couldn't agree more on this. For what it's worth, as the elder class continues to age they will need to incentivize the younger class away from other more lucrative careers with something. You won't win their hearts with working outside and making the same as what you can at home depot.
Interesting statistics. But I'd like to see more about the number of people working as techs before I draw any conclusions. It could be that the raising of qualifications for licensure has resulted in more techs working under the supervision of fewer licensees. Overall that might be a good thing for the profession, if frustrating for some upper level techs.?ÿ
The Home Depot comment reminded me of something my wife told me yesterday. She has a high school senior boy who works on Saturdays only at the nearby cattle auction barn. He has only worked there for a couple of months. He moves cattle from one small pen to different small pens as they get closer and closer to the sale ring for auctioning. He makes $19.50 per hour.
The PLS numbers here in the other Washington are similar. As more and more of us approach retirement there are less of us willing or able to take over businesses. The market for my business is practically nil, and as we fade into the sunset,?ÿ so goes our records. Within the past two-years several seemingly vibrant firms in my neighborhood have just closed up shop. Leaving clients, municipalities and others searching for information that was inside of those walls.?ÿ Our state provides a repository for land survey records which is where mine will end up, but the process of indexing them in a way that is helpful is expensive and lengthy.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
I'm doing my best to help.....I just took a 20-30k pay cut to get back into surveying so I can finish chasing my license. No, I'm not head trauma, nor crazy( well...) I just have had other roadblocks and challenges that have redirected my goal. Now I just need complete before I need a walker and a power chair......
I know that the number of Techs far outnumbers the number of Licensed Surveyors.
From which it follows that more and more often decisions that need to be made in the field are NOT being made by the license holder.
I know I have told this before but a couple of years ago I was alongside a road and a neighbor woman struck up a conversation with me and informed me that her son used to work for a local surveyor but he quit to take a better paying job at Wal-Mart pushing shopping carts.
?ÿ
Think about that, he quit the surveyor to take a BETTER PAYING JOB pushing shopping carts.
I welcome a shortage and it cannot come soon enough but I do not believe it will ever happen. And besides for the most part surveyors are some of the worst businessmen in the world because they are afflicted with a communicable disease called "PROFIT GUILT".
There are a lot of Chicken Littles running around right now wringing their hands in anguish and screaming about a shortage when the reality is that we have had an over supply for decades and this "shortage" is merely getting back to where it should be.
So bring it one and maybe I can make some decent money before I hang up my spurs.?ÿ ?ÿ
It's perfectly normal for a young fellow to be paid minimum wage for the first few months of his survey career. If WalMart is paying minimum + 25¢, then they are paying more than surveying. So what? Let's compare wages after 1 year, 2 year, 5 years, etc. on the job. Then we will see who is further ahead. Only then will we have something meaningful.
I've noticed that usually when I hear about the shortage it's coming from NSPS reps or society officers.?ÿ I'm glad those guys are out there doing what they do but at the same time it seems hard to ignore the connection between the number of surveyors in circulation and the amount of dues collected.?ÿ ?????ÿ
Apparently some are paid minimum wage, but it should be considered a slap in the face. When I was a teenager I worked construction, and as the lowest-ranked person on the site even I knew it should be beneath my dignity to receive minimum wage, and I wouldn't have accepted it.
I agree with Just-a on this. We need to shed the idea that minimum wage would be remotely acceptable for anyone on a survey crew. If we identify with the world of construction, we see that it's not acceptable. If we identify with the professional world (engineers, et al.), it's definitely not acceptable.
It's perfectly normal for a young fellow to be paid minimum wage for the first few months of his survey career.
This is called penny wise, pound foolish. Your pool of potential long-term employee candidates is limited to those who don??t value their time any more than fast-food/retail initial hires - it is unlikely that these folks are good decision makers - they??ve already made their first BAD decision by taking a job paying poverty level wages.
I wouldn??t hire anyone willing to work for minimum wage.
The idea of a surveyor shortage or any shortage in STEM is dramatically overwrought.?ÿ JustASurveyor is in good company when he says that the emperor has no clothes.?ÿ Eric Weinstein (Ph.D. Mathematical Physics, Harvard; currently director of Thiel Capital) has done a lot of good work to show that the STEM "crisis" narrative was manufactured by those who would benefit:?ÿ tech companies, who were then able to use H-1B visas to import workers who would be willing to work at lower wages to avert the "crisis".?ÿ?ÿ
As surveyors, we at least have some protection from offshoring by virtue of the fact that our work still requires ground-pounding.?ÿ So we should take advantage of that and drive a hard bargain with wages and billing rates.
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I disagree with you and anybody who would suggest that minimum wage is acceptable for any position within a survey company no matter if it is for 1 hour or 1 week or 1 month, it should never be allowed to occur. I tend to think that we have been conditioned and have done this to ourselves.
Until we begin to see ourselves as professionals who hire paraprofessionals we will be forever cursed with hiring whoever walks in the door and it foolish enough to do this work for peanuts and pats on the back.
Perhaps the good doctor can explain that to those who are cancelling or postponing projects because they can't get the surveying done.
This may not be a universal issue but there is a problem. Market forces will create pressure for a solution, but it won't be pretty. It takes eight to ten years to built an entry level PLS. The dollar based solution isn't going to recognize that.
As an aside, I agree with JK. There is no function in this business (janitor included) that should be paid minimum wage.
I take your point, but I think the "problem" should be restated like this:
"Perhaps the good doctor can explain that to those who are cancelling or postponing projects because they can't get the surveying done at the price they desire."
I find it nigh impossible to believe that project managers can't find surveyors at any price.
The dollar based solution is the ONLY solution. One can only hope that as I enter my 50's that a surveyor will become the rarest professional on the planet!
One can only hope that as I enter my 50's that a surveyor will become the rarest professional on the planet!
If a shortage of surveyors develops, the dollar based market solution will be that lobbyists who can't get surveyors at the price they are accustomed to will get the licensing requirements loosened.
