Offshoring is Major Cause of Technical Unemployment -IEEE 29

[arunmrao]

Jobless in Germany? Look for the local Brothel.

http://sify.com/news/pioneer/fullstory.php?id= 13713634

This is an interesting news item .Prostitution in considered as an industry in Germany .Another way of life and another set of social values far different from ours(Indian).

 

[havesealwilltravel]

COMCOKID - Civil and structural engineering have been STRONGLY and NEGATIVELY affected by outsourcing. The effect is both direct (current work being sent overseas) and indirect (the industries that moved their production facilities overseas no longer need U.S. engineers). Salaries are falling and GOOD job opportunities are limited. There are plenty of jobs if you are willing to work cheap enough.

I agree that there is no need for panic. However, I don't think that any intelligent engineer believes that the engineering profession is moving in the right direction. Jobs are disappearing, wages are going down and the trend downward is likely to continue. As a profession, engineering is doing poorly. We are in a downward spiral and general optimism is unfounded.

I cannot recommend engineering as a career for a capable young person. When a high school asks me about engineering as a career, I tell them that I enjoy the work but not the direction of engineering as a profession. I tell them to consider the current trend and project where they will be in 30 years. The likely conclusion is either grossly underpaid, unemployed or in another profession.

Most of the optimism for engineering in the U.S. is a belief that there will be a "Next Best Thing" and that the "Next Best Thing" will be in the U.S. Neither is guaranteed to happen and both happening is very unlikely. These individuals may be currently in a comfortable situation and their situation may stay comfortable for the duration of their career. However, I see little optimism for the future of the engineering profession in the U.S.

 

[LIstress]

Re: arunmrao's "Jobless in Germany" post.

I followed the link and read the article. How sad that I had to read about this tragedy on an Indian website. In reading the article, I sensed almost a subtle tone of glee coming from the author just beneath the literal content.

How dare he (she?) cast aspersions on German morality when India has had a caste system for God knows how long. Oh well, perhaps the people mentioned in the article simply lost their jobs to outsourcing, in which case I wouldn't expect a whole lot of sympathy from the author.

Historically, Germany has produced some of the finest engineers the world has known, and I dare say more than India. Every one of MY books on mechanics, structural analysis, and mechanics of materials is filled with historical references to German names - not Indian.

Lest anyone think I am an insulted German, I am not. I am an American engineer, and I feel more than a bit of solidarity with Germans and other workers of the western world that are losing jobs to dollar-an-hour countries.

God bless the Germans, and Godspeed them and the rest of the western world from this outsourcing mess.

 

[arunmrao]

LIstress,
The world has shrunk due to technology. So it cannot be helped that you had to read on an Indian website. Many publishing houses and agencies are waiting o be admitted.

There is no sense of glee in reporting the news item,but fills me with dejection. I have many German friends and interact for business with German companies.

As regards to caste system,our constitution does not support it. Though it may be prevalent in stray pockets. In todays modern society it does not exist.

India was a colonial country for nearly 4 centuries. At the cost of our resources western world progressed. A fact that cannot be denied.

Regarding outsourcing to dollar an hour countries introspection will have to be done within for the many reasons and answers.

Please do not assume that the posting was done with any sense of glee,but it saddens me . if the germann government recognises it as another industry,there is little left to wonder.

 

[GregLocock]

I checked out that story a while back. It was a UK tabloid beat-up, not official German policy.

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

for a deconstruction.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[sms]

Well I guess I am one of those un-intelligent engineers. Maybe dannym can further enlighten me. I disagree with him/her so I am obviously too stupid to fully understand the problem. I don’t believe that engineering is in a downward spiral, I am generally optimistic, and I don’t concur with dannym’s conclusions, so I guess I need remedial education. Amazing that while I am such a unintelligent person I have managed straight A’s in my Masters degree program, I hold a PE license, and I have had a successful 20 year career in engineering.

Dannym, just in case you are not clear on the sarcasm, I consider your post insulting, and I am very tempted to flag it. Now, if you are going to make those kinds of statements, you need to support it with some unbiased data that is representative of engineering in general, and of the United States in total, or you should retract much of what you said. Ron at least provides some data on electrical and computer engineering, though I don't agree that his data can be extrapolated to all engineering, and I don't share his conclusions even regarding electrical/computer engineering. Dannym I would also caution you against setting yourself up as the judge of what is and is not intelligent.

 

[SacreBleu]

I am somewhere between dannym and sms in my opinions. I worked as a QA/QC engineer for 3 years, for a company that outsourced structural engineering (as opposed to an international joint venture such as GregLocock describes).
First of all, I agree about the negative influence of outsourcing, but I am not so negative about engineering as a whole. It is certainly true the employers in the USA have been able to keep salaries down, but this has been going on for a long time because there are many foreign engineers that come to the USA and are wiling to work for low salaries.
Unlike danyym, I would not discourage anyone from an engineering career. If engineering "clicks" for a person, then it is his/hers challenge to make it a good career despite all setbacks. That is why I actively strove to get out of the "outsourcing" company, any finally succeeded.
As far as engineering as a profession, it may not be glorious in the minds of the public, but at least I feel good that my job is not to rip off the general public, as so many other professions demand.

 

[havesealwilltravel]

sms - No offense was intended. If you took insult at my comments, I am sorry.

Congratulations on your educational and career success. I also had a 4.0 for my Master's Degree and I am a P.E. in 8 states. I have bee employed as an civil, computer, mechanical or electrical engineer for 32 years and have never been laid off. (I am not bragging. I just want you to understand that I am not some disgruntled failure.)

I was voicing my opinion about the direction of careers in engineering. The trend is not favorable. Other career paths are outpacing us in terms of status and pay. The career opportunities at the present time are much, much more limited than they were when I began my career.

There are many articles to support my opinion. The link to one of these is attached. There ia a plethora of articles that support my point of view.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/05/wo_florman051904.asp?p=0

 

[Comcokid]

dannym - thanks for commenting on my post.

Being an electrical engineer (analog/rf design) I have seen the effect of outsourcing on my peers and friends. Maybe not always directly (they haven't had their job sent overseas) but frequently indirectly (fewer job opportunities).

The Civil, Structural, or Environmental engineering types do not seem to post comments on the issues of outsourcing, and was wondering just how much they were being affected. Are the strong PE requirements of their industry and discpline providing some level of protection?

 

[BobPE]

Comcokid:

You hit the nail on the head. The PE does have an insulating effect on outsourcing. In fact, the PE works to many an engineers favor in that many overseas requirements for municipal and government work reference the PE, making for greater opportunity for American engineers.

I have no short or long term fear of losing my job to foreign competition and in fact, there is a great demand for PE's in the consulting world right now.

Bob

 

[HgTX]

Also some of us are tied to the construction end rather than the design end. If the construction site is in the US, that's not very outsourceable.

For bridges, even the fabrication is kept pretty local--Buy America restrictions mean that the girders and even the steel reinforcing cages need to be made here, for most major highway projects.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines: faq731-376

 

[QCE]

"If the construction site is in the US, that's not very outsourceable."

Interesting how I'm a Canadaian that can work on any jobsite in the US. We also have many Americans working on Canadian jobsites. Isn't that outsourcing?

 

[QCE]

Actually now that I think about it, almost all the engineers on the large scale construction project that I'm trying to get work on at the moment are from Sweden. This is a construction site just outside my home town here in Canada.

No work for me. Work for many Swedish engineers. Interesting how some people think that local construction sites are unoutsourcable.

 

[makeup]

We had a new wind farm built a mile offshore in the UK, all we managed to supply was the accommodation module, eveything else came from europe. All jobs can now be completed using the global workforce. You are not safe, ask the accountant.

 

[BobPE]

makeup, sounds like I have it good here in the USA, I will keep counting my lucky stars...

Bob

 

[Heckler]

Dannyhm

I was voicing my opinion about the direction of careers in engineering. The trend is not favorable. Other career paths are outpacing us in terms of status and pay. The career opportunities at the present time are much, much more limited than they were when I began my career.

My wife brought home an interesting chart from her history class the other day. I was yearly salaries from 1940's and engineergs were the highest paid at $5K/yr.

Engineers
Dentist
Vets

Today list 2005 would be something like this:

Lawyers
Chiropracters
Dentist



Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Do you trust your intuition or go with the flow?

 

[Ron07663]

Thank you Dannym for that great article and thank you all for your good comments.
Like most of you, I have enjoyed a wonderful engineering career and look forward to many more years. But like many, I find it easy to be so rapt up in your work, to forget the external influences that can affect your future.
Over the years there have been "shortage shouters", industry propaganda and university academics with their own agenda that worked against the "working engineer". But lately this has, it seems, become an avalanche of bad news for an engineering career in the USA - H1-b and immigration issues , whole industries moving manufacturing out of the country, manufacturing in general decline, "Buy American" being out of vogue, and now a wave of Off-shoring.

The political and economic influence of engineers is not heard because we are so splintered into diverse technical specialities that we rarely speak to each other across those boundaries and never speak as one voice to industry and government.

The question I ask is this: How can we use the internet and other communication tools (that we engineers created)to unite our common interests in advancing engineering as a premier career choice.

 

[HgTX]

QCE: back-and-forth between US & Canada, which have more or less the same pay scale, isn't anywhere near the same thing as the one-way flow of jobs from more expensive to less expensive labor markets.

A version of outsourcing that doesn't need borders to do its damage is companies laying off their employees and replacing them with "contractors"--often those very same employees, minus the benefits and the job security.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines: faq731-376

 

[QCE]

I still ask the question:

Why is it okay for North American engineers to work all over the world but it is not okay for foriegn engineers to work in North America?

We can't go back to a closed border system so what is the solution?

North American governments and business are in a lot of cases responsible for trying to open up markets so they can do business there.

Now that the markets are open you can't close your own door.

 

[vonbad]

Interesting thread and everyone's views regarding this issue of outsourcing. I think it's a naive view if anyone thinks they are immune to this.

There are a few ways to reduce this. First, work for less and compete at their level. Second, make all your purchases from domestic manufacturers.

Both are easier said than done. For me, I enjoy my current quality of life. Also, any purchase (large) is also based on the quality of the product.