Boeing and Airbus 'Fight Like Hell' for Aerospace Engineers

The race to sell airliners, particularly between Airbus and Boeing, is creating cutthroat competition in the aerospace industry to recruit engineers.

There is a worldwide shortage of people with the qualifications needed by the companies gearing up to meet demand for an estimated 20,000 aircraft in the next 20 years.

Toulouse, France-based Airbus SAS, for example, is using Twitter accounts to talk to potential recruits and plans to hold an international recruitment day on June 30, interviewing 100 candidates from 15 countries selected from more than 6,500 applicants.

Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus parent EADS NV (IW 1000/56), noted that "the pool of talents in Europe at least has clearly become too small."

Airbus says that of 12,000 jobs available in the sector in Europe last year, only 9,000 were filled.

At Chicago-based Boeing Co. (IW 1000/49), human resources executive Rick Stephens told AFP that the United States produced 72,000 to 74,000 engineering graduates a year, but "we don't see enough students completing engineering degrees to be able to fill what we believe will be the needs" of the aerospace industry.

Thierry Baril, his counterpart at Airbus and EADS, said: "We must fight like hell on the international market to get the best talents."

When Boeing closes a factory -- as it did this year in Wichita, Kan. -- putting engineers on the market, "everybody pounds after them, Airbus and Bombardier," Baril said. "It's a little war for talent."