A great topic to stir up thought, and some great responses... a lot of thought in all of them
A few things come to mind... while overall engineering is a great career and supply/demand is favorable, I have seen instances where there is oversupply. Granted its location-based... but ask any aeronautical or mechanical engineering student that graduated in the northeast in 2002 or this year... jobs are NOT just falling at their feet. They may have to locate away from their families, away from home, even across the country to get a job in the US as an engineer. While most Aero's I knew when I graduated (2002), ended up with jobs, I would say 99% of them were as mechanical engineers, not the profession they chose exactly. I also know that more often than other years, the year I graduated and last year/this year there were a lot more college students that didnt have job offers before they graduated. Its already a little of a tough field.
Now if you are willing to think outside the box and not necessarily "be who you intended to be" there are a lot more engineering jobs than you might imagine. Honestly, I never really knew "systems engineer" was a title until I was graduated and got offered a job as one. I still apply all my engineering skills, and a lot of systems engineers have an electrical background, but I didnt get a job as "an electrical engineer".
While I see a lot of the shortages of supply most years (it was a pain when I was recruiting and offer after offer for the "good college engineers" got turned down), we do have to be careful that it follows the economy, and to understand and set expectations appropriately. Good college and good grades are still huge factors in getting a job right out of college.
All this said, I dont think we will see supply exceed demand any time soon, with the retiring generations, and the still slow growth of STEM interest, I dont think having a program like FIRST encouraging kids is going to overfill our bucket for quite some time.
And as Jason points out, just because you have an engineering degree doesnt mean you HAVE to be an engineer