Europe set to shed 150,000 engineering jobs

Financial Times ^ | June 16 2002 21:51 | By Peter Marsh

[Myrddin]

We have great net connectivity in the Pocatello area. Lots of cheap real estate too. Idaho State University in on the south end of town. All the ingredients are here to create a clean, high tech software/academic style of business. Instead, the locals were talking about frittering away funds that were intended to attract quality business to the area on building an ice skating rink in a run down part of downtown. There is inadequate parking for such a facility and no hope of making it a financial viable, self-sustaining entity. It would be a millstone around the necks of local property owners in the form of higher taxes.

The cost of living in Pocatello is such that a $70K annual income is as good or better than a $108K income in San Diego, CA. Lots of houses with 2000 to 5000 sq ft for very reasonable prices as a consequence of local businesses shutting down.

[XLurk]

...engineering is dead in America...

Many entrepreneurial start-ups are scrambling to move
overseas to lower-tax and lower-regulation (lower-BS) jurisdictions.
(It ain't just Stanley Tools, folks...)

I have reason to know. It's simply a matter of survival
in the current political-economic context.

[Bogey78O]

Well the technician job title lso required they program the switch and other various tasks in the central office. It's just they never had to perform that aspect of the job that often.

[Bogey78O]

Maybe they got thier act together since the 80s but the DMS-10 switch was a bloated, slow, and underpowered switch. You have to build every connection manually, nothing is performed automatically, and it takes ages to be able to access it. In my area the DMS-10 been nothing but trouble. We only have 6 in Louisiana which I'm thankful for.

[RLK]

As of about five or six years ago an engineer in China was paid about $1,200 a year. The Chinese university system now has about 30,000 Oh. D. engineering faculty members educated at Caltec, MIT or any of the other top schools in the world. These people are, in turn, reprocuding themselves at the rate of tens of thousands a year. That's the place to go if you want something done cheap. As an engineer here, I can't compete with that. My auto insurance and gasoline to get to work are more than that.

[jadimov]

Could you compete if your company and therefore your job was in an area like Pocatello, Idaho? It has a state college. It's starting to collect good businesses and it has a low cost of living.

The current wave of competition may force American companies into a diaspora away from the expensive cities and urban/suburban areas. American companies changed to fight the Japanese economic threat of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. That led to quality initiatives throughout the country. Many companies died. Many more were born. All of the survivors are stronger. Perhaps the new challenge will strengthen America too by spreading technology and jobs into the rural regions.

[RLK]

That should read: The Chinese university system now has about 30,000 Ph. D. engineering faculty members educated at Caltec, MIT or any of the other top schools in the world.

[RLK]

Could you compete if your company and therefore your job was in an area like Pocatello, Idaho?

-----------------------

Look at the figures. The answer is no. An area such as Pocatello would be personally preferable than other places in the U. S. But I still can't complete with a good engineer making $1,200 a year, or even $1,2,00 a month. What's being done is to ship the work out, pockets the increased profits and put me out of the loop.

[skeeter]

They had big plans for this industry as an employer, but they don't need anybody to make the things anymore - they're trinkets now. ... and this is in Malyasia!

I was involved with HDD a few years back & traveled on occasion to Malaysia. That country was heavily depending upon that industry economically...