I think, because of smartphones and smart gadgets, the demand for hardware and gadgets has reduced dramatically. A lot of gadget ideas can be built as an app. Plus, most businesses need websites or web apps now so there is much, much more demand in for web engineering.
You are right about phones. I saw this a lot over the past years myself. I started in hardware back in the 80's when it was all big components. Then, with smartphones, it became clear that most little pocket gadgets of the 90's were obsolete. However, doesn't someone still need to make the phones and computers of tomorrow? Aren't those people going to be paid well since there will be fewer of them? I'm not saying it's not true, it just seems odd that software would be compensated so much better than hardware. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?