Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:25:45 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: disappearing electrical engineers
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 01/18/14 06:32, Ron Kean wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 20:59:04 -0500 mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us> writes:
>> Excerpt:
>> Despite an expanding use of electronics in products, the number of
>> people working as electrical engineers in U.S. declined by 10.4% last
>> year.
>>
> Despite an expanding consumption of food in the US, with an ever
> increasing number of mouths to feed, the number of farmers in the US has
> declined dramatically since 1900.  Even so, the physical volume of food
> exports from the US has increased dramatically over the same time period.

Massive automation - giant combines, etc, - as well as, post WWII,
agribusiness. As of the 1990? Census, "family farmer" is no longer a
"recognized occupation", as there were so few; I think it was 1.3% of the
population, or less.
<snip>
>
> The decline in EEs in the US should be seen in a worldwide context.  I'm
> pretty sure that the number of EEs in the world as a whole has been
> increasing, not decreasing, whether one looks back 10 years, or 20, or
> 30, or 50.  These days, the EEs behind electronic products consumed in
> one country are most likely located in some other country, and a product
> manufactured in one country was often designed in another.
>
And you've utterly missed the point: that point being fewer kids are going for
EE because there are fewer jobs in it. As in, the multinationals are *dumping*
(in the exact usage of the "free trade" agreements which allow penalization of
"dumping" goods) the products by taking well-paying jobs from the US and
giving them to underpaid folks elsewhere. (See the news stories this past week
about the Oracle salesman from India who tried to move to the US, and wanted
$60k/yr, and the lawsuit over "$50k/yr's good enough for an Indian").

In the mid-eighties, I was salaried, and working on an official 37.5hr week.
By the mid-nineties, it was 40 (or "whatever it takes"), with no o/t, no
"official comp time policy", and so-so benefits (none of this "platinum bene
package" crap.

mark