Posted on 06/02/2006 12:10:29 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Haley agreed. "If you were to speak to any multinational tech executive working in China, they would tell you only about 10 percent of Chinese engineers are capable of working up to multinational standards," he said."
Finally, an honest read of the situation. As I have said on other threads similar to this, the dirty little secret in business is that there are technical types kept on staff either stateside or in a 'supervisory' role overseas. Why? Because they have to put out the fires generated and correct mistakes.
While this may be indirectly acknowledged by higher level executives, there is little effort made to correct the problem, much less offer any recognition to the staff pulling their hair out trying to keep things together.
Now, don't get me wrong--there are instances where there is some very good work going on. But all this junk in the press about 'falling behind' is a lot of agitprop to keep the market flush with talent>
Also, a lot of those titled 'engineer' over there go to the equivalent of a 2 year technical school--hardly the type of education to have employees well grounded in science and engineering fundamentals.
"And employers should look hard at salaries, Wadhwa said. In Duke's case, 30 to 40 percent of students in its master's of engineering management program accept jobs outside the profession. "If the money was there in engineering, you bet these kids would be getting into engineering," he said."
And here is the other fly in the ointment. There is, IMHO, a lot of upper management out there that views engineering talent as a 'commodity' item. It is a simple fact that while engineers may have decent starting salaries, those salaries tend to 'top out' after 10 years, unless one enters management of some sort.
If I were asked about possibilities in engineering, I'd tell the individual that now engineering is a lot like teaching: You better like doing it, because there isn't much appreciation for the field.
To envision what would happen-- the 'Day without Illegals' was a bust. But imagine what would happen if the engineering profession went on strike for six months? Sales and marketing types would be jumping out of windows everywhere ( but only after they can get someone to open the window for them ).
Exactly, and right now China and India have the "mindshare" - as in, "their kids are smarter than ours and can do the work cheaper."
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