Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Yep. But it's not mrkthompsn or his company you should be blaming. They made a very reasonable, good faith attempt to do the right thing.<< Like I said, we are "collectively" committing economic suicide.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Like I said, we are "collectively" committing economic suicide.>> Yes and no. There are many areas where the U.S. still has competitive advantage. But to get into those careers they have to study Math and Science, which most kids today avoid like the plague. They want to study the easy stuff and still think they can become millionaires. Ain't going to happen. The main problem America faces is that we have become some of the laziest fricking people on earth.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>to get into those careers they have to study Math and Science<< And they'll be wasting their time. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57573874/execs-favor-easier-immigration-for-skilled-workers/" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50...workers/</a> <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566565-93/obama-backs-immigration-reform-for-skilled-tech-workers/" target="_blank">http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023...workers/</a> <a href="http://politic365.com/2013/01/31/stem-visa-immigration-reform-most-likely-to-benefit-asians-not-latinos/" target="_blank">http://politic365.com/2013/01/...latinos/</a>
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn We even brought in an Nebraska candidate to confirm the Michigan quote. They were 12% below in cost (nicely), but still tragically more expensive than China. This will allow us to develop our next product faster. It also allows us to continue utilizing our California industrial designers, who charge $400k for overall product "design". This is just for the "look" of the product, not the actual engineering of it. The engineering of it is performed by my team. America is left with designers and engineers.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn ... ~expensive~ designers and engineers. I advised the industrial designers to move out of tax-heavy California and not charge us so much. But they want to be close to Apple/Google/HP/all that crowd.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<And they'll be wasting their time.>> THANK YOU!! It's time to put the "lack of STEM professionals" myth to rest. There are plenty of experienced professionals in our country, today, who cannot get work. Why? They're deemed to be "too expensive" to hire, because foreign professionals can be brought in on VISAs for a fraction of the cost. And the access to cheaper foreign professionals is about to get even easier for business, as mawnck pointed out with his links. We need to follow Germany's lead and concentrate on strengthening manufacturing here at home. Putting financial incentives in place for companies to keep those jobs here is crucial to the survival of our middle class. Our nation is on the way to becoming one gigantic Mumbai if we don't reverse this course soon.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<And they'll be wasting their time.>> No they won't. Business is pushing for easier immigration for workers with those skills because there just aren't enough of them being produced in the United States. All you need to do is look at math and science test scores of Americans in comparison with others and you will see that we are woefully behind. <<There are plenty of experienced professionals in our country, today, who cannot get work.>> Maybe there are plenty of them in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area. That was certainly not the case in the Midwest.
Originally Posted By hopemax Another growing problem is that math/science is becoming increasingly necessary on the factory floor, but people go to school in those fields to avoid working on the factory floor. The people willing to work those jobs don't have the education, the people with the education aren't willing to do the manual labor part of the job.
Originally Posted By velo I think its less about doing the manual labor and more about the pay associated with the job.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The pay for many of those jobs isn't bad, and is increasing due to the difficulty in finding people with the needed skills. Better than spending 4-years in college getting a Liberal Arts degree that is not very marketable and then end up stuck in a clerical position. Univ of Minn offices were filled with people like that.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Univ of Minn offices were filled with people like that. >>> I went to public university, and saw the same thing. In a great many cases, these workers started working for the school part-time while attending the university. Then, each year, many of the job openings for full-time positions were taken by graduating students that more or less kept the same job, but transitioned from part-time work/study to full-time employment. There are enough students graduating each year that are in the situation where they don't know what they're going to do when they grow up, and the easiest thing is to just stick around and work for 1-3 years. In all too many cases that ends up being 1-3 decades. As a result, the university is filled with people working jobs that could easily be filled by qualified high school graduates, but for which the state had subsidized a 4-year college degree. Not a good investment for the taxpayer.
