Posted on 06/23/2013 6:06:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's tough to find a job everywhere: in the US, in China, in Europe, and in India.
Think education is the answer? I don't.
Economic Times reports amillion engineers in India struggling to get placed in an extremely challenging market
Somewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India's engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. Others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications in a market where there are few jobs for India's overflowing technical talent pool. Beset by a flood of institutes (offering a varying degree of education) and a shrinking market for their skills, India's engineers are struggling to subsist in an extremely challenging market.Engineers Churned Out in Spades
According to multiple estimates, India trains around 1.5 million engineers, which is more than the US and China combined. However, two key industries hiring these engineers -- information technology and manufacturing -- are actually hiring fewer people than before.
For example, India's IT industry, a sponge for 50-75% of these engineers will hire 50,000 fewer people this year, according to Nasscom. Manufacturing, too, is facing a similar stasis, say HR consultants and skills evaluation firms.
According to data from AICTE, the regulator for technical education in India, there were 1,511 engineering colleges across India, graduating over 550,000 students back in 2006-07. Fuelled by fast growth, especially in the $110 billion outsourcing market, a raft of new colleges sprung up -- since then, the number of colleges and graduates have doubled.
How is [the situation in China] different than the average liberal arts major in the US expecting the world at their doorstep just because they have a useless degree that prepares them to do nothing more than work as a part-time retail clerk, 25 hours a week, dumped into the Obamacare system?If education was the answer, there would not be millions of engineers looking for jobs.
Yet, we are told education is the answer, without ever addressing the questions "for who? at what cost? in what field?"
These articles were purportedly about China. Change the names and faces and the stories are not much different than you can find right here in the US, in Italy, in France, or anywhere else in a slow-grow global economy.
After growing at an astronomical rate for years, the cost of education is going to plunge. Job statistics will force that outcome.
“I have talked with quite a few other companies, who have similar views. They view socialized medicine as the cheaper option.”
That does not make them socialists, that makes them businessmen who do not view the provision of bear-hug government-approved health insurance as part of their core expertise.
What they are saying is healthcare should not be the responsibility of the employer. They are right. If that means the people who vote for socialized medicine get to experience it (even if some are their employees) so be it.
Why should your employer ensure you have health care? Isn’t that your responsibility?
LOL- you sound a LOT like me
(that’s a good thing)
My hat is off to you for a 40 year career as an engineer. Your insight is enlightening.
Good technique. I shall remember that. I have had many interviews where the lead programmer had a vexing problem and asked me the subject matter (in the effort to catch a clue on the problem). When I detect that, I borrow from an old commercial, smile, lean back, and say “Hire me and I’ll tell you.” :)
True... but frankly, that should frighten you. XD
I am not a degreed engineer, in fact I am a public high school graduate, my only formal education beyond that having been a 38 week electronics school in the Navy. I do however understand what you are saying. I have done a lot of projects which I constructed mentally and then recognized the flaw in my plan and reconstructed mentally before actually starting the physical project and without putting anything on paper. I did maintenance on small offset printing equipment for thirty or more years and I can still visualize one of those machines as if it is on a movie screen in front of me. I can start it up, see the parts move and even section it to see the internal parts and tell you which are moving clockwise and which counterclockwise. If I really concentrate I can “hear” it, not as clearly as I see it but I can still bring it back. Apparently most people are unable to do this. I used to do the “celebrity cryptogram” in the local newspaper and reached the point that in many cases I could look at it for a while and then read it off without ever picking up a pencil.
That holy cow elimination is going to require more than just engineering!
LOL, we are geeking it up. You may not realize or remember but you and I have a very long history on this particular topic.
I have a recollection of that. I love our kind of people. :)
Amen brother. I almost had it out with my Humanities professor. It was my attitude of course. But at the time I realized the University/College system is gamed. What the heck does an engineer major need Humanities for? Oh, to give some loser a Doctorate and tenure, oops, es-cuuuuuse me.
There are two skills/characteristics that are always in short supply: Leadership and people skills. Of course work ethic helps too. And can I get an engineer that can write a coherent and legible report?
You are right that most people lack the ability, I am the same way. However as I get older I’ve found it more and more difficult (not impossible) to perform those visualizations. I don’t know if I can attribute it to just age or the various alcoholic beverages I’ve consumed over my lifetime. I live a very healthy lifestyle and I know that helps but it is very unnerving to feel like a treasured skill may be waning.
The ability to visualize the entire system has prevented so many coding disasters over my career I couldn’t count. Hopefully you don’t experience the degradation like I have but unfortunately it might be a unavoidable certainty.
“Don’t expect an optical engineer to design sewer systems.”
What crappy outlook that would lead to!
Doesn’t India have a lot of trains?
So what’s the problem, featherbedding?
Agree. I’ve said that myself for the last 35 years.
I am sixty nine now and the only skill I use for income any longer is talking on the telephone. I certainly don’t have the full mental abilities I had at 18 but I can still visualize. I can actually recall details of a stream valley on the little farm where I grew up even though that part has been under a fish pond for nearly fifty years now. I can see the steep slope I used to ride down on a draft horse when I would unhitch him and ride him back to the barn at noon when I would feed him and go and eat my own midday meal. I had to be very careful not to slip forward onto his neck as I was riding bareback. He was so big with such a broad, flat back that my legs could barely hold onto him, I was a preteen at the time, maybe eleven years old. The horse was jet black with a white diamond on his forehead and white stocking forelegs with the long white hairs, much like the first team visible in this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZErW1QoAn1w
I agree.
This is not new. It’s been going on in India for thirty years. I heard stories from Indian engineers years ago about graduates having to work at menial jobs because there weren’t any job openings for engineers. Things are changing, but if they ever hope to achieve what the U.S. has achieved, they will need to make some cultural changes. Unfortunately for them, such changes are usually very slow.
Few people in the U.S. seem to appreciate that the culture of the Americans as it evolved in the 1700s and 1800s is responsible for the tremendous economic growth, of which we are the beneficiaries today.
Professors who hate capitalism and the concept of private property have claimed for a hundred years that we are wealthy because we took advantage of poorer cultures. While abuse did occur, it doesn’t explain our wealth.
Our wealth is primarily because of our cultural foundation. Concepts of right and wrong from our Judeo-Christian heritage. Concepts of law and private property which our forefathers brought with them from England. Concepts of liberty and individual rights which became popular in Europe and America in the eighteenth century. Patent law. And this foundation is being destroyed today by the elites in our country.
If people were using their own money to buy their college education, more of them would choose to study something that would help them earn a living. As long as they're spending OPM, why not major in Underwater Basketweaving?
Ma'am, I don't wish to be disrespectful, but so many Freepers seem to think that all any college student needs to do to ensure employment after graduation is change his major from, say, sociology to engineering. The problem is aptitude and educational background. I cannot remember the exact number but not too ago someone posted the opinion of an engineering professor that at his university maybe 15 percent of the student body could handle the mathematical requirements in the engineering school.
One has to understand that few students have the ability to understand higher mathematics and the aptitudes to handle, say, spatial relationships, that many engineers have to deal with. Add in the educational background (maybe the students took almost no math classes in high school; how are the professors going to teach remedial math as they go along in any engineering course?) So saying the answer lies in having students just change their major is not the answer, IMHO.
LOL!
You won’t get an argument from me on that point. I go a little further and separate engineers into two camps - analytical and synthetical. Although we all do a little of both, you can be a better at analysis, or better at design. In my experience, the foreign-trained engineers are more adept on the analytical side, but are not often very creative.
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