Projects just dried up, like someone turned off hose

[umatrix]

This may belong in personal strategy section, but I wanted to hear from those in the auto industry.

At current company work was steady, and then just stopped. I know it is not just me , but I can see it happening to our team as well. I am relatively new in my career and so far every company I’ve worked for is always dysfunctional. The last two underwent significant financial problems, one ending in bankruptcy. Current company emerged from a similar situation a few years back.

Last year started with management and upper level people leaving like crazy. Up until a few weeks ago engineering team stable , but now people leaving too.

Is this normal in the automotive industry ?
Are we coming into a slowdown ?
Do I jump ship or hang on? ( I like the work I do and the people at current job)

 

[BrianPetersen]

What niche of the auto industry are you in, and in what part of the world?

Automation/tooling/robotics here (Canada). We've been swamped with new-vehicle programs. Several assembly plants in this area are being retooled, or are expected in the next couple of years, and we've been busy because of the knock-on effects on parts suppliers.

I was expecting a slow summer due to difficulty of getting certain electronic parts. It's been an issue, but somehow things have gone forward.

 

[LittleInch]

If mgt and "upper level" have gone, it's probably more like no one was chasing the new business which you need to do on a fairly continuous basis.

The ones at the top see the cliff edge coming before anyone else.

Jump ship or wait for the ship to sink? Don't know enough.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[GregLocock]

I've been in automotive since 1978. Every company I have worked for has made losses for years, been sold off, practically broke, or mortgaged up to the last hair on its head (hopefully I'm not the root cause). OTOH the only time I've been unemployed was 8 weeks and that was while choosing a next job, which went well.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[CWB1]

Yes, yes, and maybe. The auto industry is notorious for being feast or famine, so you need to maintain a decent emergency fund and flexibility bc layoffs and downturns are both sudden and routine. It may seem disconcerting at first but ultimately its your income and not your employment that matters, and in a top-paying industry like this its been easy to earn more in 30/36 months than others do working the full 36. Many old-timers actually look forward to layoffs/downturns as vacations much the same as northern construction workers do during winter. Personally, I have managed to stay ahead of layoffs. I have had several temporary (1-2 weeks unpaid) layoffs at OEs, one voluntary layoff, and resigned twice ahead of two other layoffs to join companies in other automotive subsets (ag/construction, rail, oil&gas, etc). Other than the TLOs I haven't missed a day of work due to being unemployed, and am actually far ahead when you consider that I collected six months' severance and another several months' unused vacation on top of my regular salary.

As to the future and what to do, that's a tough one. The industry as a whole has been very slow and getting slower since COVID due to lack of consumer spending/demand. Most every new vehicle program has been cancelled or pushed the past few years, and capital spending is nonexistent other than token efforts at collecting "free" govt money and a bit of publicity. The industry is also rapidly downsizing both the OE engineering depts and supply base due to the legislated death of the IC engine. Jobs are permanently disappearing and a huge portion of the supply chain is heading into bankruptcy, so many engineers are going into other industries atm. Whether/not to join them is the real question, good luck either way.

 

[BrianPetersen]

New vehicle programs? BT1XX, BV1HX, and BEV3 have been keeping us hopping. All are EV programs. There's more coming, but it hasn't gotten to the point of building tooling yet. It has been publicly announced that Stellantis wants to build a pretty big battery plant near Windsor, and they're going to design and build vehicles to put those batteries into. The suppliers that I work for already build plenty of parts for EVs.

 

[CWB1]

More like old programs being re-sourced after years of delay. Battery & "chip" manufacturing are the latest free-money generator but little-no results should be expected when govt and media are the drivers rather than sales. Plants are idling and manufacturing engineers have been laid-off en-masse, its sad bc the OEs just spent four years and billions in Detroit building new plants and renovating the old but nobody's buying and there's a huge glut of repo/financing losses ongoing.

 

[GregLocock]

I think you can model it 3 ways

1 the glorious BEV revolution succeeds. All the powertrain guys get redeployed or out the door. Lots of money floating round.
2 The glorious BEV revolution stalls at about 20% market share. OEMs are therefore forced to continue to develop PTs, as well as trying to get on top of EVs. No money floating around
3 The glorious BEV revolution fails. They remain a niche player for virtue signalers et al. Wind back to 2019. Some money floating around.

My money is on 2. My reasoning is that battery prices aren't going south due to raw material costs, and virtue signalers live in virtue signalling states whose electricity networks are not designed to support mass transportation.





Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[umatrix]

CWB1,well said.

 

[dgallup]

I've been in automotive since 1978. Every company I have worked for has made losses for years, been sold off, practically broke, or mortgaged up to the last hair on its head (hopefully I'm not the root cause). OTOH the only time I've been unemployed was 8 weeks and that was while choosing a next job, which went well.

Pretty much my experience too although the last company to buy this plant has been profitable and stable. I've been "retired" for the last year and a half but was consulting a couple of days a week mostly training my replacements. However, the work load has increased and one of my replacements already left so now I'm back to working 5 days a week. I did manage to take off 4 weeks for a knee replacement, 10 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks this fall so it's not all bad. What are they going to do, fire me?

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