Our need is so great that in 1999 we started offering recruiting incentives to our employees. Last month, one of our Houston-based engineers won a fully loaded Ford Explorer for making a successful referral. A new incentive has just been announced for 2000, giving employees the chance to win their choice of any Ford, Lincoln or Mercury product. Let me show you. I have attached some graphs to the back of my testimony.
Electrical engineers are the lifeblood of the semiconductor industry.
A quick look at this chart shows that the unemployment rate for electrical engineers has been running significantly below the national rate. There just are not many electrical engineers looking for a job. That problem is further exacerbated by the fact that our universities are turning out fewer students with degrees in electrical engineering. This chart shows that the number of bachelors degrees awarded in electrical engineering since 1987 has declined steadily, falling 46 percent. For 1997, the latest year for which data is available, over 40 percent of all master s degrees in electrical engineering were awarded to foreign nationals and almost one half of the Ph.Ds.