There was never a decline in RF engineering demand, it's actually going up massively. But not in the US, Canada, Sweden... all the work is in China.
It will actually be impossible to catch up with China on RF unless the US and Europe legislate for IP (not manufacturing!) to originate in the West. No Huawei 5G, no cheap Chinese SDN/ethernet, etc. Core switching and 5/6G edge. Remove patent protection for 5G designs.
This is the correct take. The industry is a decade or two behind China in terms of raw engineering headcount. All that remains in the talent pool must shelter around military contracts and subcontracts as they just can't survive on the open market. The IP laws combined with the Chinese ability to copy anything is overpowering.