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Old 11-21-2012, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
9,701 posts, read 5,098,532 times
Reputation: 4270

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Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler View Post
Sorry, but you're wrong. Maybe some sectors, but we tried hiring sprees and testing out a lot of people. The local talent pool was not nearly as good as the ones from elsewhere. Have you noticed how many of those students in those most employable of US programs are foreign? How about looking at an example of something similar but with less corporate abuse--how about we look at what makes up both the faculty and student population of graduate school science, math, and engineering programs and see just how disproportionately skewed it is towards foreigners and/or first generation immigrants.
Look at the math. The US has 42 of the top 50 engineering schools in the world, graduating 10s of thousands of engineers every year. 70% of those graduating are American citizens. Do you seriously think that we need to go abroad to find engineers based solely on talent & ability?

Even if you just take the top 10% of the graduating classes, that's still thousands of the best engineers in the world entering the workforce every year.

We are losing jobs on $, not skills. Companies pad their bottom line by constraining wages & pushing productivity.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Ohio
24,623 posts, read 19,105,746 times
Reputation: 21738
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler View Post
The question is, do you think things like the above are enough to supplement and improve our current workforce such that we have an appreciable turnaround in our economy?
Absolutely, just so long as you also take a 50% cut in pay benefits to make you competitive with the rest of the world.

Reality...it's real...

Mircea
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:41 AM
 
6,205 posts, read 7,441,432 times
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The "competitive" term is indeed irrelevant for the current situation. Education is a part of the problem, but only one part. The demand for goods and services is weak, unemployment high and consumer confidance low. Even with 100000 more educated engineers that won't change. Companies are looking for educated people who take $10 pay per day and are willing to work in conditions similar to Foxconn in China. That will never happen in the US.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:44 AM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
9,701 posts, read 5,098,532 times
Reputation: 4270
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post
Absolutely, just so long as you also take a 50% cut in pay benefits to make you competitive with the rest of the world.

Reality...it's real...

Mircea
Not the rest of the world... just the Indians & Chinese that we want to race to the wage basement against.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:01 AM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,675,147 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oberon_1 View Post
The "competitive" term is indeed irrelevant for the current situation. Education is a part of the problem, but only one part. The demand for goods and services is weak, unemployment high and consumer confidance low. Even with 100000 more educated engineers that won't change. Companies are looking for educated people who take $10 pay per day and are willing to work in conditions similar to Foxconn in China. That will never happen in the US.
I think the income gap shows just what society wants and will pay for. We need to seroius look at just what our universities prodcut is and what is needed. The day of a liberal arts degree being then trained by a componau for anther job is gone.We are now facing Cinese peasdants who can turn a screwdriver as well as we other unskilled workers and do it at a less price. This isn't the post WWII years where they had no facility to turn that screwdriver to produce. Skill levels need to be higher as always to support those risng wage levels veruses others in the world.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,321,515 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieB.Good View Post
Not the rest of the world... just the Indians & Chinese that we want to race to the wage basement against.
Vietnam, Philippines, Brazil just to name a few others.
The world is catching up with skills at a much lower cost than the US.

And the longer we deny it the further we sink.

And we're in a catch-22 with this. Lower salaries to compete globally put us all below US poverty rates.
The prices in stores are not coming down anytime soon to match lower salaries.

That very conundrum is happening today with record number of food stamp recipients each month and growing.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:32 AM
 
10,854 posts, read 9,285,354 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieB.Good View Post
Globally competitive? Lol... w/ who? China & India? GTFO of here w/ your slave-wage advocacy.
The wages in China and India are rising. The ultimate irony here is some jobs are coming back to the U.S or being sent to other coutries because of this.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:40 AM
 
10,854 posts, read 9,285,354 times
Reputation: 3122
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler View Post
Sorry, but you're wrong. Maybe some sectors, but we tried hiring sprees and testing out a lot of people. The local talent pool was not nearly as good as the ones from elsewhere. Have you noticed how many of those students in those most employable of US programs are foreign? How about looking at an example of something similar but with less corporate abuse--how about we look at what makes up both the faculty and student population of graduate school science, math, and engineering programs and see just how disproportionately skewed it is towards foreigners and/or first generation immigrants.
Having worked in high technology over twenty I'd beg to differ. First, U.S. companies definitely rig the game to hire H1-B workers. Second, there is rampant age discrimination in the high tech industry. There are lots of experienced programmers and engineers that get doors closed in their face because high tech companies would rather pay lower salaries for less experienced workers and H1-B workers.

The lament "I can't find enough workers" is really about I can't find enough cheap workers.

Go to any website posting a news article about this and you will see similar comments posted by readers.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:45 AM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,565,345 times
Reputation: 22474
Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzyTallGuy View Post
Having worked in high technology over twenty I'd beg to differ. First, U.S. companies definitely rig the game to hire H1-B workers. Second, there is rampant age discrimination in the high tech industry. There are lots of experienced programmers and engineers that get doors closed in their face because high tech companies would rather pay lower salaries for less experienced workers and H1-B workers.

The lament "I can't find enough workers" is really about I can't find enough cheap workers.

Go to any website posting a news article about this and you will see similar comments posted by readers.
Yes -- but you yourself want to keep the borders and bring in unlimited numbers of cheap labor -- but to put American factory workers and restaurant workers out of work.

What can be done to destroy the lower middle class Americans can also be done to destroy the higher middle class Americans.
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Old 11-21-2012, 11:57 AM
 
Location: Chicago, IL
9,701 posts, read 5,098,532 times
Reputation: 4270
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
Vietnam, Philippines, Brazil just to name a few others.
The world is catching up with skills at a much lower cost than the US.

And the longer we deny it the further we sink.

And we're in a catch-22 with this. Lower salaries to compete globally put us all below US poverty rates.
The prices in stores are not coming down anytime soon to match lower salaries.

That very conundrum is happening today with record number of food stamp recipients each month and growing.
We won't know how much truth is in that until we deal w/ the fact that almost all gains in productivity are going to the people at the top of the company. I can't stomach the conversation that starts off that we need to pay our employees wages in line w/ the 3rd world, while paying our executives record-levels. Either the global competition affects everyone, or it doesn't.
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