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labor shortages and unemployment

Simple....

You can take my word for it (and if you don't, which I suggest you shouldn't) or do a little research on your own by visiting any college campus specially any engineering department. If you go to any engineering department specially advance classes.. meaning 300/400 level classes or Master and phd, you will find out that 90% of the soon to be engineers are foreign students, 10 years ago it used to me mostly Asian (Chinese) and now mostly Indian.

Our company like many others can't find qualified US citizens with Master or above degree in Engineering jobs, so we have to look else where which is right now graduates from India.

Because of the high demand and not enough supply the immigration office is also bugged down and typically 7-10 years waiting for the residency path, which means companies have to spend time and money on immigration lawyers, which does hurt the bottom line.

BTW these are not low paid drones. Immigration office has very strict policies as the minimum pay requirements for foreign student working in a practical training programs which is stepping stone to working visa (H1) and then path to residency!

Companies like mine prefer to hire US citizen or US residents, but we can't find any...the good ones all are taken by big and fancy firms. For few positions that we have open we have been looking for more than 5 years.

Diving Mullah

Holy crap.
Not only will Americans not do hard physical labor, but it seems they won't do hard mental labor either.

What does this bode for the future of this once great nation?
 
A few years ago I met a young woman, in her late thirties, and defending her application for disability. She'd had 7 surgeries in life, a nose job, two boobs (one didn't come out right), gastro bipass, two knee replacements, a hip replacement and a back laser job she actually had to pay for. Her disability claim was that it was impossible for her to sit or stand comfortably. I suggested she get a job lying down and her husband tried to punch me!


Holy crap.
Not only will Americans not do hard physical labor, but it seems they won't do hard mental labor either.

What does this bode for the future of this once great nation?
 
That sounds like a socialist dream, all right. Hasn't it been tried, in some of the African countries?

How about just fining the employers who hire illegals, and let labor supply and demand increase wages?

Or Cuba...
 
A few years ago I met a young woman, in her late thirties, and defending her application for disability. She'd had 7 surgeries in life, a nose job, two boobs (one didn't come out right), gastro bipass, two knee replacements, a hip replacement and a back laser job she actually had to pay for. Her disability claim was that it was impossible for her to sit or stand comfortably. I suggested she get a job lying down and her husband tried to punch me!

I don't blame him. Two knee replacements and back surgery - there aren't too many jobs she could work at. I agree that she probably couldn't stand or sit comfortable.
 
I don't blame him. Two knee replacements and back surgery - there aren't too many jobs she could work at. I agree that she probably couldn't stand or sit comfortable.

Really? I could link you to her skydiving Facebook page !
 
You go where the jobs are. If illegals can make their way through the desert from a foreign country a welfare queen in a city can make her way to an agricultural area

You think unemployed people have the financial means to move 100's of miles away for a part time job that may only last a month or so??
Totally unrealistic.
 
I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago, to a discussion of immigration reform and how the agricultural industry depends on "undocumented workers" to bring in the crops. If immigration reform doesn't pass in some form, the growers are afraid of labor shortages and crops left in the fields for lack of workers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is seen as a serious problem still.

So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

If given a choice, would you pick tomatoes in the hot sun or sit on welfare/unemployment? That is the choice people are given. I guess their choice is obvious.
 
If given a choice, would you pick tomatoes in the hot sun or sit on welfare/unemployment? That is the choice people are given. I guess their choice is obvious.

Yes, it is.

And that's the problem.
 
You think unemployed people have the financial means to move 100's of miles away for a part time job that may only last a month or so??
Totally unrealistic.

You get on a bus and go. The farmer provides housing and when your job is done there you get on a bus and go to wherever the next crop is that is ready to pick. As you make money you get a little trailer and something to pull it with. That's how it works. I planted trees once and lived in a tent and bathed in a creek, if you want to work you can work.
 
You get on a bus and go. The farmer provides housing and when your job is done there you get on a bus and go to wherever the next crop is that is ready to pick. As you make money you get a little trailer and something to pull it with. That's how it works. I planted trees once and lived in a tent and bathed in a creek, if you want to work you can work.

Let's put these magic buses, that just so happen to go from your home to the correct farm hundreds of miles away, and then just so happen to go to the next farm after that, to one side for a moment.
It's unrealistic to expect that people should give up all their worldly possessions, furniture, white goods, etc for the chance to do temporary, minimum wage jobs. A small minority of people may be in a position to do that, but most can't.
 
Let's put these magic buses, that just so happen to go from your home to the correct farm hundreds of miles away, and then just so happen to go to the next farm after that, to one side for a moment.
It's unrealistic to expect that people should give up all their worldly possessions, furniture, white goods, etc for the chance to do temporary, minimum wage jobs. A small minority of people may be in a position to do that, but most can't.

Buses go to every town and having a job is how you keep your worldly possessions not give them up.
 
Buses go to every town and having a job is how you keep your worldly possessions not give them up.

Please, give it a try for a season, let us know how it goes. Start from downtown Detroit, ok?
 
Simple....

You can take my word for it (and if you don't, which I suggest you shouldn't) or do a little research on your own by visiting any college campus specially any engineering department. If you go to any engineering department specially advance classes.. meaning 300/400 level classes or Master and phd, you will find out that 90% of the soon to be engineers are foreign students, 10 years ago it used to me mostly Asian (Chinese) and now mostly Indian.

Our company like many others can't find qualified US citizens with Master or above degree in Engineering jobs, so we have to look else where which is right now graduates from India.
You, sir, are outright lying. I have done my research on this.

The Death of US Engineering » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
The alleged "shortage" of US engineering graduates is inconsistent with reports from Duke University that 30 to 40 percent of students in its master’s of engineering management program accept jobs outside the profession. About one-third of engineering graduates from MIT go into careers outside their field. Job outsourcing and work visas for foreign engineers are reducing career opportunities for American engineering graduates and, also, reducing salary scales.
Economics 101: Reducing salary scales isn't what happens when there's a shortage of engineers.

Many engineers remain unemployed despite reported tech skills shortages | TechJournal
For a complete review of the American Community Survey, including a table containing detailed employment figures for specific engineering degrees, visit the Center for Immigration Studies website at: Is President Obama Right About Engineers? | Center for Immigration Studies

The 2010 American Community Survey shows:

There are 101,000 U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who are unemployed.
There are an additional 244,000 U.S.-born individuals under age 65 who have a degree in engineering but who are not in the labor market. This means they are not working nor are they looking for work, and are therefore not counted as unemployed.

In addition to those unemployed and out of the labor force, there are an additional 1.47 million U.S.-born individuals who report they have an engineering degree and have a job, but do not work as engineers.

President Obama specifically used the words “highly skilled.” In 2010, there were 25,000 unemployed U.S.-born individuals with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or Ph.D. and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working, but not as engineers.

The problem "your company" has is that it can't find Master's degree holders willing to work for the peanuts "your company" wants to pay them.
 
Please, give it a try for a season, let us know how it goes. Start from downtown Detroit, ok?
Bad suggestion. He'll be dead of heat stroke or a machine accident inside of a month.
 
You, sir, are outright lying. I have done my research on this.

The Death of US Engineering » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Economics 101: Reducing salary scales isn't what happens when there's a shortage of engineers.

Many engineers remain unemployed despite reported tech skills shortages | TechJournal


The problem "your company" has is that it can't find Master's degree holders willing to work for the peanuts "your company" wants to pay them.

So basically you site an article appropriately name CounterPunk who claims all the media and studies about the shortage of engineers are wrong except the one article that they sited....Hmmmmm

Even if you take that at face at value...It does not negate what I have said about large disproportions of foreign student compared to US one...here is a link to my first assertion

The United States is a sought-after destination for international graduate students, particularly those pursuing degrees in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).



International students accounted for 57 percent of full-time enrollment in U.S. graduate engineering programs in fall 2012, up 3 percentage points from the previous year, according to data reported by 190 ranked institutions.

But the share of foreign students varies from school to school. At Michigan's Lawrence Technological University, for example, roughly 10 percent of the school's 78 full-time graduate engineering students hail from outside of the U.S.


At the opposite end of the spectrum is the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, which enrolled 303 full-time graduate engineering students in fall 2012. Nearly 95 percent were international students.

Bridgeport's School of Engineering is an anomaly, even among engineering schools with high concentrations of foreign students, and tops the list of graduate engineering programs with the most international students. At these schools, foreign-born students accounted for roughly 86 percent of full-time enrollment in fall 2012.


Several of the schools that boast a large percentage of international students are designated as Rank Not Published (RNP) in the 2014 Best Engineering Schools rankings. U.S. News calculates a rank for all RNP institutions, but does not publish them. Graduate engineering programs with fewer than 20 full-time students were not considered for this report. Neither were schools designated as Unranked, which did not submit enough data for U.S. News to calculate a rank.

Below are the engineering schools with the highest percentage of full-time international students for fall 2012. Due to ties, there are 11 schools on this list.

read more...

Engineering Schools With the Most International Students - US News and World Report

Secondly California has very strict and regulated laws about minimum salary requirements... for example... for a Design Engineer LEVEL II (Master Degree or 5 years experience) Minimum pay is 80K with average around 100K). Even if the companies wants to pay less (which they all do) as the employee want to get paid more... the company hands are tied down.

Now lets say I get a foreign student with master Degree and pay him peanuts as you call it which is about 80K a year. An Indian student with master degree.... I change his status from practical training to H1B visa which has to been done within his first year of working for me. Then has to be trained for the first few years (all engineers coming out of school do) which is an actually a down time for the company(all the training and not enough producing) the minimum wait time for H1B status to a permanent status is 7-8 years, with all the loops the company has to jump thru. Why would any company (here in California... can't speak for other States) subject themselves to all this extra hassle and commitment. the company is committed, the engineer is not and they can jump companies anytime they want. They rather have US citizen engineers.

Working as an engineer is not an easy job, high pressure environment and long hours and the pay is not that great compared to amount training needed and time investments as compared to other fields which means... you can actually work less and get paid more.

Also don't forget many engineers also jump into finance and work for wallstreet because the pay is better. The rest of us stay with engineering because we love being geeks!

Now it is true and many companies may prefer New Graduates for certain jobs, simply because they are easier to train. But established and experience Engineers are very valuable and they get grabbed by companies as soon as they are will to change companies

You can go to monster or other job search sites like Linkin and search for say Design Engineer and you will see the list of jobs and the salary range, you also can see the average time job has been opened and decide for yourself if I am lying or not.

Is say one more thing...while it is true and companies like hiring "drone Engineers " for some of manufacturing jobs overseas. But for most of Engineering companies the R&D is here in US, because the talent pool is better. Also one main reason they prefer the drone engineers is not because they get paid less (if they do that is because of standards of living is different; actually now engineers oversea are also demanding more equivalent salaries compared to US) but the main reason is the companies don't have to deal with health insurance, as they are covered by single payer system of their native country like china, Hong Kong or Taiwan and ...

If you bring a single payer system here in US it would lift a huge burden of the back of many companies!


Diving Mullah
 
So, how is it that we can have labor shortages and high unemployment at the same time? It seems to me that the system has to be badly out of whack for that to happen.

This has got to be...one of the dumbest questions I have ever seen posted on any forum, anywhere.
 
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