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Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
sd_engineer, at the time when I checked out that thread, it, too, had quite lively comments over 390. I added a couple of my own two cents, as well. Obviously, we here aren't the only ones who are fed up with the growing income disparity in America.— April 11, 2011 1:30 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
You do realize that we'll all be accused of being un-American socialists with our tirades, don't you? "America, love it or leave it!", remember?— April 9, 2011 9:32 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
And, like I said earlier, Pres. Obama is doing a great disservice to skilled American workers in manufacturing, by claiming that America can simply "out-innovate" other countries towards good jobs and prosperity, when he avoids the issue of addressing outsourcing and insourcing by our high-tech companies, along with his appointment of GE's Jeff Immelt as his business advisor. It's quite apparent that he's ignoring the trend of Invented/Innovated in America But Made Abroad Cheaply, which has been practiced, for decades, by American manufacturers such as GE.— April 8, 2011 5:24 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
The following are excerpts from an opinion article by Prof. G. Pascal Zachary of Arizona State University, in current issue of IEEE Spectrum. In it he argues that not only outsourcing of jobs including high-tech, but, ironically, technical innovations have also led to some destruction, rather than creation, of jobs in America. "The simplest explanation for the employment crisis is "jobless innovation." Exciting new technologies are coming onto the market, but they don’t appear to require many people. The new generation of Internet stars, for instance, employ far fewer people than the older tech titans. And Silicon Valley, which remains by far the most fertile innovation cluster in the world, has experienced sharp declines in employment over the past 10 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found in 2010 that high-tech employment in Silicon Valley (including biotechnology) fell by a staggering 19 percent over the course of the 2000s and that Silicon Valley wages also fell, nearly 14 percent. The decline in jobs and wages occurred, all the more shockingly, alongside the revival of Silicon Valley as a global innovation center. Not only did the area spawn major new companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, but it also saw a startling series of victories by Apple in the new arenas of the iPod, then the iPhone, and most recently the iPad. And yet despite achieving stunning dominance in smartphones and tablet computers, Apple today employs 10 workers in China for every worker in the United States." "The jobless-innovation phenomenon results partly from globalization. Grove points to two related problems: Breakthroughs made by Americans in the United States are increasingly scaled up in Asia, robbing the country of expected employment benefits. More significant innovations are arising offshore, too, Grove reports, so that "scaling and innovation take place overseas." Scholars have labeled this phenomenon "the offshoring of innovation." They point to a marked rise in R&D activities in China and India especially, but also notably in Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, and other rapidly growing economies. Offshoring creates a significant drag on U.S. employment, scholars say. A new book,The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes, published in December by Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder, and David Ashton, argues that there now exists an ample pool of "cheap brainpower," outside the United States, largely in low-wage countries, with predictable effects on the U.S. labor market." "Applying more technology to cure the jobs crisis carries another paradox. Many emerging technologies destroy jobs, in a process that the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter famously labeled "creative destruction." http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/joble…— April 7, 2011 6:58 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
We've been brainwashed by the ideology that capitalism is still the best market system that justly rewards those who are motivated to work hard and their awards are fairly proportional to the qualities and productivities of their works. Capitalism is what made America the richest nation on Earth, we are told, and it will still be what maintains that status. Anyone who challenges that theory is summarilly dismissed as un-American, socialists, communists, Marxists or fascists - nevermind the actual practice of capitalism in current America. So, most people, especially the professionals, are too intimidated or too brainwashed and just keep their mouths shut, I'm afraid.— April 6, 2011 2:57 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
I came across couple of letters in response to this article by Don that supports it. Was any of it by someone who posted here? http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2011/mar/16/le…— April 6, 2011 2:35 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Yes, and our Hopey Change Prez, who seems to have no idea of reality (just see what he's doing with Libya, for example), keeps preaching about needing more domestic STEM graduates and technology innovations to create jobs, without doing much, if anything, to back up his feel-good soundbites. (As a former supporter, I'm thoroughly disgusted and even more disappointed at his failures to deliver than those who opposed him from the beginning.) But, then, it speaks volumes when he chose Jack Welch as his business adviser. But, my real point is that large corporations of other, advanced, industrialized countries, like Germany, are certainly no worse off than those of the U.S., without offshoring or inshoring jobs as much as their U.S. counterparts. Corporate tax rate in Germany may be lower than it is in the U.S., on paper, but, without all the loopholes, the German companies actually end up paying signficantly more than the U.S. companies. Yet, the German companies do not use it as a convenient excuse to hire cheap foreign workers to replace German workers.— March 30, 2011 7:01 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
"India not taking away U.S. jobs: Sharma" “Independent studies have shown that if 2.8 million jobs have been outsourced, then another 5.5 million have been created in the U.S. We are not taking away jobs but creating new ones. Our professionals add value to the job and the U.S. officials are also fully apprised of these facts." Well, so he says. Of course, he fails to support his claim with data that shows a strong correlation between the jobs outsourced and the jobs created in the U.S. Nor does he state what jobs were created. (For all we know, the jobs created may be much less paying ones.) By the way, what independent studies by whom is he referring to? (He doesn't tell.) Then, too, the Indian government is protesting the increase in H-1B visa application fee by around $2000. http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/article1…— March 26, 2011 11:18 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
In stark contrast, on the Charlie Rose Show, aired on March 22, 2011, the mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, and other mayors, INCLUDING the mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, were arguing that America should allow more foreigners on student visas or other temporary visas to stay on to become new Americans to create jobs in America. The topic was discussed towards the end of the program corcerning the broad challenges and issues currently facing virtually all cities across America in this Great Recession. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11559— March 24, 2011 6:32 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Meanwhile, the Obama Adminstration continues its rhetoric on the need to graduate many more STEM to keep America technologically and, hence, economically ahead of the rest of world.— March 22, 2011 3:14 p.m.