U.S. Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World

Chronicles Magazine ^ | Tuesday, June 07, 2005 | Paul Craig Roberts

[raybbr]

Sorry. I tried to post a jpeg. of a Greenspan quote. I'll post the quote where I wanted the pic to go.

I would like to see more of our students majoring in engineering. That is less likely to happen if they listen to all the nonsense about the engineering jobs going overseas.

Why?

...Critical awareness and the ability to hypothesize, to interpret, and to communicate are essential elements of successful innovation in a conceptual based economy." Alan Greenspan

[jb6]

Yeah, what a great accomplishment, 3 years after a recession and our debt laden economy squeezed out 4% (of course this counts the top 2% who now make around 240 times the average salary). Gee, while the WTO was only reeving up we were squeezing out closer to 8%, now that its in full swing it's 4%. How nice. But we'll also ignore the massive deficits, the skyrocketing bankruptcies. You've got your one chart and by God you'll try to pound it and ignore the various questions lobbed at you as you pound the drum of Free Trade.

[Logophile]

Why?

Why would I like to see more students major in engineering? Or why might they choose not to major in engineering if they hear that the engineering jobs are going overseas?

[WFTR]

I would like to see more of our students majoring in engineering. That is less likely to happen if they listen to all the nonsense about the engineering jobs going overseas.

Unfortunately, most of the engineering jobs are going overseas. Good engineering jobs follow the manufacturing industries. If more of the refining, petrochemical, and chemical industries move overseas, then the engineering jobs will follow them.

I spent much of the 90's as an engineer trying to salvage a career. I had very good grades through bachelor's and master's degrees at major public universities. I had excellent performance appraisals at work. However, when I was laid off, I found few jobs available and had only one offer over the next five years. That job wasn't worth having, and I returned to school to get another engineering degree. I landed back at a good employer in '99, but I'll never recover the salary and benefits that I lost in the 90's. Fifteen to twenty years ago, engineers constantly received calls from headhunters wanting them to consider other jobs. I haven't been called by a headhunter in years.

I understand that people who find themselves in a dying industry are going to have problems. We're going to have work pretty hard just to stay above water, and we're going to have to put up with many situations that we don't like. I don't like it, but it's a part of life. However, there's no reason that I would push someone else to put himself in the same situation that I'm facing. There will be a few engineering jobs left for a long time, but it won't be as it once was. I'd certainly not push anyone towards engineering the way that my generation was pushed.

There are things that we can do to reverse the situation. If we'd do those things, the chemical, petrochemical, and refining industries would recover somewhat and there would again be a high demand for engineers. At that time, I think encouraging people to go into the engineering disciplines would be a good thing to do.

Bill

[raybbr]

I thought, based on Greenspan's quote, that our economy won't need engineers anymore. Why go to engineering school when you are going to live in a "conceptual based economy"?

[jb6]

Here are some nice Dept of Labor stats, very interesting.

Imagine that, outsourcing has an effect!

Even services are suffering.

[Logophile]

Unfortunately, most of the engineering jobs are going overseas. Good engineering jobs follow the manufacturing industries. If more of the refining, petrochemical, and chemical industries move overseas, then the engineering jobs will follow them.

I would have to see some reliable data before I would believe that "most" of the engineering jobs are going overseas.

Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the demand for chemical engineers is down in the traditional petroleum and chemical industries. Part of that may be the result of government policies that are unfriendly to such industries. (How difficult would it be to get approval to build a new refinery in the United States these days?)

More important, perhaps, is that those are "mature" industries. (That sounds much better than saying "dying" industries.) Even if the business climate were to improve drastically, it is doubtful that the petroleum and chemical industries would ever need as many chemical engineers as they once did.

The chemical engineering profession is either going to adapt or whither away. Chemical engineers appear to be adapting. They are going into nontraditional fields such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, materials, and food engineering. Even so, it would not surprise me if the numbers of chemical engineers declines.

[Logophile]

I thought, based on Greenspan's quote, that our economy won't need engineers anymore. Why go to engineering school when you are going to live in a "conceptual based economy"?

Funny, I came to the opposite conclusion: an engineering education would be a great advantage in a "conceptual based economy." (Greenspan often has that effect on his listeners.) An engineering degree program is good preparation for almost any career, technical or otherwise.

[Nowhere Man]

those 25000 GM workers who lose their auto jobs, they are going to be able to find other jobs at the same pay level. right? how about half their current pay level? or are they going to end up at walmart. and all those north carolina furniture workers going out, they are too, right? or are they going to end up at home depot.

the US used to be a place where even a high school graduate could get a job, skilled or semi-skilled, and afford the basics of a middle class life - including a wife who did not have to work, and children.

today, we have college graduates living with their parents into their 30s. and its not anecdotal, its becoming endemic.

believe what you want from the BLS, I know what I see.

I'm with ya, buddy! I know I said that to you on another thread, but you did bring up the point that is seems like there is so much glee here from some Freepers when people lose their blue collar jobs, doubly so, if they are union. I can see how ON THIS ONE ISSUE on how the left does get mad at us conservatives, however, as we see here, conservatism is not a monolithic belief, nor is liberalism, but I digress. I'll jut add, that it makes us look bad because of the stance of some of us here on the economy and trade issue.

Unions are generally good, sometimes you do need collective bargaining, as the saying goes, "there are strength in numbers." Yes, they do sometimes do bum things like maybe at times demand a little too much during lean times and back the wrong candidates, I mean the Democrat of today is not the Democrat of 70 years ago. Yet, unions were needed at one time and needed now. I know in my family's history on my father's side, my grandmother is still a union member at the age of 90 for her life of work as a single mom raising four kids. She worked at the Clark Bar factory on Pittsburgh's North Side. Her family came over from Russia and her uncle was one of the big wheels in unionizing the coal mines of West Virgina to where he even lost his life over that.

Dang, running off again, I figure it is time to get back to brass tacks.

We need to be looking at ways to be able to have that type of life you have described where the middle class life can be obtained by someone out of high school. We have lost that and we are seeing the effects of that as we lose our moral soul and society. One we lose that, we are not worth defending anymore. I don't want that but I have to go on what I have seen and it doesn't look good.

We might not be able to go back to the exact same society we had 30, 40, 50+ years ago, but we can try to do that, yet we must look for new ways as well as try things that would even challenge the standard left/right economic paradigms we have always known. We know that pure socialism ain't the answer but I don't think capitalism, at least the way the free traders present it doesn't fill the bill either and I'm losing faith in that. Maybe we need some sort of "managed capitalism." I don't know all the answers, but we must have a meeting of minds on this and quit the closed minded thinking. It will be our downfall.

We are at a fork in the road. Either we do something for the good of our economy and her people, yes this means we might have to bite the bullet on some things, but we need to get back to a society where it is within the average person;s ability to get into the middle class. The other side of the road is that we will have to go to a Swedish or Dutch style welfare system to support a huge underclass that is out of work due to the free trader's policies. So we can pay a little now and get some of our dignity and economic strength and self sufficiency back or pay a lot later with a huge welfare system, the free traders have that choice.

There is also a possibility that if we continue the present course, we will have an Anakin Skywalker come up out of the woodwork promising this and that while establishing a dictatorship. I know my history. If we are lucky, he might only go as far as establish a Swedish welfare system but as history shows, it would be much worse than even that. I don't know where our Anakin is, he could be a baby or a snotty nosed kid in the ghettos or an up and coming 30+ year old in politics somewhere, but I think he or she is out there.

I'm sure there are some free traders where my words fall on deaf ears but I wanted to have my say. We are at the crossroads, which path should we take and what policies will we follow is anyone's guess. Lastly, I used to give credence to the free trade and Ayn Rand stuff when I was younger, but I have opened my eyes and have seen the destruction they can cause so I need to fight against that. We need to be strong again, in this dangerous world, it is much more dangerous than it was even during the Cold War.

[SALChamps03]

This is typical leftist thinking isn't it? They do not understand basic economics. Everyone has two accounts. A money account and a capital account. When you purchase goods from another country (or from anyone for that matter), your capital account increases by the exact same amount that your money account decreases. The opposite occurs on their end. It's a net zero transaction. Why do leftists not understand this?

[SwankyC]

Reply 157! You're getting slow. Please tell me again how everything on Earth is made in America. I just paid my bills and need someone/something to laugh at.

[SwankyC]

Well, you're off by almost 24 hours, but that's passable error for a protectionist.

I know. You let me down, but that's passable for someone that holds the rest of the world above his own country.

[WFTR]

You can play word games with the terms "mature" and "dying," but the result either way is exactly what you admitted. There are fewer jobs today for chemical engineers. Some chemical engineers are moving into other fields, but the traditional chemical engineering jobs are withering as you admitted. Under those conditions, it's silly to encourage people to go into chemical engineering.

Mechanical engineering is also going to follow chemical engineering. Many of the same plants that employ chemical engineers to run the processes employ mechanical engineers to run the equipment. I agree that many mechanical engineers will be forced to adapt, but the final numbers are still going to be lower in mechanical engineering.

Chemical and mechanical engineering have been the biggest fields for some time, and if you're admitting that those fields are declining, then we get back to my point. It's silly to encourage young people to go into fields where they will immediately find themselves scrambling to adapt to loss of jobs. They'd be much better off going into fields where the training matches the available jobs.

Undoubtedly, government policies are having a big negative impact on these industries. The high cost of natural gas is killing the chemical industry. One reason that the cost of natural gas is rising so much is that government policy is pushing us away from coal and nuclear energy. We have good supplies of coal. Coal is reasonably inexpensive, doesn't kill the ducks when spilled in a lake, and doesn't go boom when spilled on the ground. If we'd use more of our coal (and nuclear) for utility power, we'd have less demand for natural gas and therefore cheaper natural gas. This policy change would help the chemical industry tremendously.

Bill

[oceanview]

absolutely. where you really see this is when you look at what the children of engineer parents are going to college for - its not engineering. the parent's know the score. they are piling their kids into law schools.

an engineering undergraduate degree is only worth it if you combine it with finance or business administration. and perhaps a course in Indian or Chinese culture.

[investigateworld]

Best post of the day Ping.

[Nowhere Man]

Thanks. Just trying to bring some common sense and reality to all of this.

[jb6]

Don't bother, he'll just tell you your math is bad and post the same old payroll chart (the richest 2% outliers included).

[jb6]