🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1gt3n6INNko5@access.usask.ca> choy@skorpio.usask.ca (I am a terminator.) writes:
>The latest issue of Spectrum discusses the conversion of engineers from
>military work to civilian work. One of the articles says that
>many engineers could go through 10-12 jobs in a lifetime. Companies tend
>to contract work out so engineers can't expect to work in a stable
>company. They have to learn to manage themselves and go around looking
>for work. Having to look for work every few years is a royal pain in the
>ass. Upper management should be getting enough work to keep their
>engineers employed. There's a few engineering firms in town. They bid
>on contracts and employ engineers to grind out the details. An
>engineering friend of mine was laid off from one such company because it
>didn't have enough work to do. Now my friend has gone out and found
>people wanting to contract work out. What's this big company doing?
>It's gotten so big that it doesn't even know how to get work. They just
>bury themselves with paperwork and legal matters.
>
>Henry Choy
>choy@cs.usask.ca


Get used to it!

The days of a career track in engineering are just about over.
Now, engineering offers jobs, nothing more.  And it ain't getting
any better.  Companies have been shifting manufacturing jobs
across the borders and overseas for years.  That trend is increasing,
not decreasing.  It won't be long before most of the engineering 
goes overseas too.  Some of it is already there.  People
in other countries, it seems, have comparable education and
can do the work just as well as we can.  The only difference
seems to be that they are currently willing to do it for much less.

Other costs are less too, for the companies.  Some countries have
socialized medicine.  So, companies don't have to pay for medical
insurance.  But the real driving force is the cost of labor,
and I include engineers in this.  Labor costs are simply less
overseas.  

The only way for you and me to maintain our standard of
living is to be able to do things that the overseas types can't do.
Maybe we can get an edge somehow.

The government should play a role here too.  The government,
if it really represented the people and not the special interests,
would see to it that the local labor force looked more attractive
to corporations (American AND foreign).  It can do this in a number
of ways.  For example, it can offer tax credits to firms that
employ Americans in America.  Foreign governments do it, and it works.
One example of this is the newly built GM plant, in Canada.
The Canadian government kidded in the equivalent of about $100M
in the form of tax breaks.  As a result, thousands of GM workers
and engineers, and thousands more employed by the smaller companies
that supplied the GM plant, are looking for work.

See you in the unemployment line.

Tony Rizzo  (att.com!hogpb!rizzo)