Engineering Employment

[Phred]

Bill,

To a point I agree with you.

However, I will not support poor engineering or poor business decisions. And some of the american products have a history of cheap engineering. My asian designed truck was made in tennessee and in ~60K miles not a single problem. The previous asian design that I owned, also tennessee manufacture, went ~100K without problems. The last car I owned was an american design and build and it needed a new tranny at 45K! This is not to say that all american products are designed poorly by far. Many are very good. I love my ford F250.
I think blind alegance to the american label would be harmful since it would allow crappy engineering to become the norm. The american products have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years mainly because of off shore competition.

So as you basically suggest maybe a preference for american made when the quality and price are close.
Those green tractors cost alot more than the italian made blue ones.

As far as engineering employment goes:
I am an EE and I agree that its tuff today. But it will get better in the near future. Five years ago an EE with a pulse had three job offers. It will be that way again. I know several young engineers that have recently obtained jobs. The market appears to be strengthening just a bit.

Fred

 

[rationalizer]

Fred,

Yep - I agree with you 100%. No one should buy shoddy products - it just encourages more of the same. My first car (which I purchased after getting employment in Detroit) was a VW because the US stuff was just NO FUN to drive. Global competition is great - we have to earn our standard of living. If, however, the quality is the same (and even if the price is a bit higher) I will buy the product designed in the US or manufactured by a US based company - so a little more of my money gets multiplied through our economy and not someone elses....

The general quality of the products we buy to day is the result of global competition - and that is a good thing.

The economy will come around and the engineering jobs will come back - but we need to keep thinking harder and faster than people elsewhere if we all want to enjoy the standard of living we have.

Bill

 

[Solo]

I'm sorry to hear about all the job cuts and lay off's in the computer field. As someone with an engineering back- round myself. It seems in this area we have touble finding skilled trades people: carpenters, plumbers etc.... I think the buisness to be in right now is the building industry or building maintenance.
Solo

 

[rozett]

The vast majority of american's purchase decisions are not driven by product quality, but rather by price. As evidence, I would offer the significant growth of both wally-world (walmart) and the big-box hardware stores as well as the fact that we are not all driving around in Infiniti's. Now I am sure that most would love to have high quality and low price, but that can rarely happen. Quality materials and the highest quality workmanship come at a significant price.

Companies are driven by their marketplace. The environmentalists can whine about gas mileage all they want, but americans are buying bigger, less efficient vehicles for a reason. American manufacturers are moving their plants offshore because of the cost of labor. And they are doing it because the marketplace (walmart and home depot) is demanding it. The labor folks can whine all they want about exploitation, but the fact is that there are many countries in this world where people make less than $0.50 an hour for their labor. Paying them $2.00 an hour (instead of $15.00 for american labor) amounts to a phenominal change in their standard of living. And let's face it... in those countries women and children already work to support the family, so I don't view it as exploitation.

And americans tend to view the 'marketplace' as the american marketplace. That is a flawed view. There are emerging countries out there (like china) that will literally eclipse the size of the american marketplace in a few years. Manufacturers know this and are positioning themselves to be competitive in those markets. If they don't, they will be bought out on the way down by the Diemlers, etc.

I live in a part of the country that is whining a lot about NAFTA and the 'greedy' corporations. I guess I don't suffer from the same myopic view....

 

[jtn]

I am still working; I have not been decruited yet. We were told no overtime and take all your vacation by the end of the year. Oh, yeah, and one more thing...feel free to take up to 3 weeks off without pay if you want.

Anybody else out there seen the movie Office Space? If you are an engineer and have not seen it I highly reccomend it.

I wonder how things are in marketing...

JT

 

[ebeacham]

My field is nuclear power operations. We have been steadily hiring the last 2 years to fill positions lost 3-4 years ago. Our engineering dept. has not hired new personnel for quite some time. I believe this is due to the fact that attrition is not high anymore due to the waning job market. Engineers do not have the choices they had just a couple of years ago. I believe this will hold true for quite some time.
If an economic recovery does not happen soon it will get much worse because of the influx of domestic and foreign graduates in the engineering arena.

 

[erich]

I have an 89 F250 with 277,000 miles on it a 58 GMC that is still going strong and a 56 Masey 50 that just won't die. I guess I can't complain about American engineering. I am a Mechanical Engineer working as a project manager for new construction and renovations at the University of Massachusetts. We couldn't buy a mechanical or electrical engineer while times were good. Now we are getting applications from overqualified candidates left and right for an architectural planners position. Unfortunately, tough times have begun to trickle down to us also. We haven't seen a cola in two years.

Eric

 

[Wheeldog]

I am a Mechanical Engineer working as a project manager for new construction and renovations at the University of Massachusetts.

Go Minutemen!
(Shameless plug from an alum, Class of 1990)

I work for a company in the aerospace/defense industry as a stress analyst (M.E.). Right now our business seems surprisingly strong, but it does seem like engineering jobs are getting more scarce in general around these parts. I've been fortunate in always being able to choose when I change jobs, but I know that there are no guarantees. Keep the skills sharp and expect the unexpected and try not to worry about it too much.

Rob

 

[Phred]

Eric,

I agree that some american cars are great designs.

Who would not want a sixties vet or mustang?
And if you want to haul a 10K trailer a nissian or a toyota is not the tool for the job.

But what about a 74 nova or a pinto?

Some of the mid 80s-90s cars were pure garbage.
That appears to be improving a bit, mainly due to competition from foreign engineering.

Also alot of the bad designs are really bad buisness desicions. The pinto was a night mare partly casued by business pressure to control cost.

Fred

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I'm not an engineer, but have served as a quality and process engineer in the paper industry. Did a sales stint for a few years, too. Now marketing and product design. The paper industry is going through gut wrenching times. Mergers, aquisitions, closures. Lot's of very experienced people leaving the paper manufacturing world. Marketplace is demanding cost reductions. Thats what is wanted and what sells. Continual cost reductions impact quality. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

I know two nuclear engineers who thought they had jobs for life. Between defense and utilities - no worries. Well she still works, but in regulatory compliance position. He is looking.