Engineering Employment

HunterdonPaul · Dec 7, 2002

Well on Monday my wife made her sign "will design for food". Her company RIFed 100. There doesn't seem to be any strong prospects so far so I guess she'll be a "stay at home mom" for a while. It'll be nice to get up, get ready and just go to work. Getting the kids out of the house in the morning is really rough. It seems like you put in an entire day before you actually get to work.

Paul

Wheeldog · Dec 7, 2002

Her company RIFed 100

Paul,

I don't know what this means. It sounds like your wife lost her job???

Rob

cstocks · Dec 7, 2002

Reduction In Force....?

HunterdonPaul · Dec 8, 2002

Yep. Unfortunately it does.

Paul

n6ckv · Dec 8, 2002

For some background, I was born and raised in the SF bay area. I have spent the last 25 years doing software in silicon valley, and my wife has been a tech writer. During this time the valley has a "slow" period about every 5 years. In these slow periods there have been may lay offs (RIFs), companies have gone away, and people have walked away from their homes because they could not afford their motgage.
Now we have finished an 8 year run of "good" times. About a year and a half before the "crash" I started to tell my friends to get ready for a slow down. I changed companies to one with a better cash position (my old company closed down the group I was in) before the crash. It was interesting to see some of my younger co-worker (those that were still in high school during the last slow down) tell me that they would not be RIF'd, it was sad to see them leave a month later.

I was lucky to be raised by an economist and read some economic historys, there are cycles (the problems is guessing how long they are). You always need to be looking ahead so that you can capatolize on the next cycle (up or down). Nothing stays the same.

The only sad thing about the last up period is that so much of the VC money went into .COMs that did not really add new technology to the base. Normally is is some piece of new technology that was funded toward the end of one cycle that brings us out of the down period.

carl

frank_f15 · Dec 8, 2002

paul: sorry to hear about the wifes rif problem. i can asoicate with that as my co has been downsizing for 15 years, finally downsized to 0 sometime in the next 12 mo. they will be closing our operation, dont really matter to me as i am 61 and will slide into retirement by the time they close, but feel sorry for the younger folks. when enough co. lay off enough people, and look for cheap labor in mexico, china. or whereever. who is going to be able to buy their products? seems like they are not looking that far ahead. a mexican. or chinaman, won't be able to buy a new car, or software(have no computer) just a sticky spot with me i guess.

Wheeldog · Dec 8, 2002

Yep. Unfortunately it does.

Sorry to hear that. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

Rob

JimMc · Dec 9, 2002

Interesting to note that many companies are returning to the US now. Seems lower productivity and higher communication and transportation costs operating outside the US and importing finished goods is not as good a trade as they thought. Add in a political destabilization or two and higher US wages don't seems so bad. Of course, every one thinks they'll be the exception, so there will still be a lot of companies who learn from experience.

em14 · Dec 9, 2002

I am glad to hear that technical work is returning to this country … I appears to me by all that I read and hear that we are in dire need for young people who truly understand and have the ability to meet this nations needs for technology … this was one of the reasons, not the only one, that the move to off shore was done ..and was the reason many companies brought the talent here from over seas … hopefully our nations youth will become interested not only how to play computer games but what’s behind the game … and … that the computer industry is but one industry among many … and there are lots of very fun occupations and careers in the Tech World but we have to keep the work here and be able to compete in Global Market …

rationalizer · Dec 14, 2002

It is interesting to note that there still seems to be a lot of engineering talent immigrating into the US. That says that our "market" for engineers is still strong. I think the move "offshore" has mainly been driven by labor costs - not engineering.

It still "pays" to do "final" assembly here in the states on many large products (cars, tractors, trucks etc.) as it is important to be close to your customer to keep delivery times down. Labor is a small percentage of the "final" assembly cost (ie: added value at the final assembly operation) - but a large percentage of the cost of the "bits" that go into the final assembly. Hence component manufacturers are moving offshore and the final assembly is staying here.

At the end of the day each of us is responsible for making sure that our skills are "competitive" in the world economy. You can't assume that doing what your dad did will deliver the same standard of living....