Chipmakers and electronics manufacturers can't find enough skilled workers

[cliffordcooley]

This also happens when universities are more worried about raising your tuition fees than teaching anything. Students have to have a special level of commitment to break through all the BS in getting a degree.

 

[Magichost]

Well, because they've out innovated and out-engineered our kids ability to catch up and giving no thought to who was going to pick up the slack; they find themselves in a bit of a tizzy now don't they! Plus they sent all electronics manufacturing jobs to China over the past 25 years (10,000 American factories shuddered) to meet wall street's financial targets for shareholders and stock portfolio holders, they didn't give a freak about mentoring our kids over here because money is all that mattered. They didn't care if it was a communist country and a threat to our country and that China was getting trade secrets. Money is all that matters man! The closing of manufacturing facilities in this country has left communities depressed and run down with low paying wages caused by the Chinese undercutting us and caused the opioid crisis that leads to run-ins with law enforcement, thus all the violence you see on the news. When the chickens comes home to roost it's not going to be pretty.....Out!

 

[Alexione21]

Of course, electronics manufacturers cannot find skilled technicians, since that is a very underpayed profession, and difficult to find a job anyplace. I have a BS in Electronic Engineering technology, my cousin has an Engineering Degree in avionics and Aerospace, we both had to switch careers to earn our living. It would be onerous to keep travelling to other countries to find a job where were supposed to find it in the US or any of its territories.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Years back, my university was cutting a good amount of funding to women's studies, geology, sociology, anthropology, and a few others… because the amount of kids graduating and finding jobs in the field was in the single digit percentiles. The real world just doesn’t hire as much as others for those degrees because they aren’t as needed for society.

Yeah, degrees like that aren't supposed to be just used on their own. I double-majored in Political Science and Liberal Arts so that I could go to Law School. There's no way I would have just taken those two degrees and tried to find a job with them. They're stepping-stone degrees that you use to get into post-grad.

Naturally, as I was weaving my way around campus to get to the CS buildings they were (ironically) protesting in front of the building with the highest potential for job prospects…

But can’t tell the kids that. Most of them ended up working at one of the malls around us, fast food management, kohls.

But when you ask them about it - it’s not THEIR fault, it’s always someone else’s that they chose a career path with less progression opportunities than a McManager.

Well it is and it isn't. It is their fault for not thinking ahead about what they could do with said degree but it's also the school's fault for not being up-front about the fact that these degrees are useless on their own.

My school was great about informing students. I don't know if it's because Canadian universities are public and non-profit or if it was just my school that was up-front about what degrees can be used for. When I was talking to the admissions office and told them that I wanted to major in PoliSci, they asked me what I wanted to do with that degree. I told them that I wanted to go to Law School and they said "Excellent. Too many students come here interested in that but have no idea what they want to do with it and we encourage them to look at another field of study." which I think is a great thing to do because it at the very least minimises the number of students who have useless degrees that they paid through the nose for.

I'm sure that it's even worse in the USA where universities tend to be astronomically expensive. There were A LOT of American students at my university and they told me it was because the rate for international students at my university was considerably less than what they would have paid for an in-state university where they were from. That just boggled my mind because it's not like education in Canada is in any way substandard. I remember asking one girl why so many American students were willing to pay the exorbitant fees and she said "Most American students never even think of studying in another country because most of us tend to be kinda insular about things like that." which I can't say was a huge surprise but damn, the thought of paying $30,000 per year in tuition alone was just unfathomable to me.

 

[bobc4012]

I know Canada has a lot of great universities and colleges. Back when I was growing up, I used to hear a lot about McGill, but back then, it would have been much more expensive for me to have gone there than nearby state run college in the US. Private colleges in the US were always on the expensive side. Today, I would agree that it is probably much cheaper to go to one in Canada. There are a lot of reasons why the situation developed in the US. It would take at least a small book to elaborate. Also, keep in mind that the population in Canada is less than the population of California. At one time, California had one of the best college systems in the US and tuition was free to state residents at state colleges (as it was in some other states). Things changed in the 80s as the population increased. As Sandy Baum, an Urban Institute senior fellow and researcher of higher-education finance said "“The reality is that when free college works — when the taxpayers are able and willing to pay for the full tuition for everyone — is when not too many people go to college.”.

While Canada's population is more diverse today than it was years ago, it was more homogeneous than the US population for many years longer, which makes a difference in peoples viewpoints. An interesting article on US "free college" can be read at: https://time.com/4276222/free-college/ .

 

[Avro Arrow]

That’s all nice & fine to say you don’t want to go back to your “crappy” low-level job, but if you are not qualified to do anything else and it comes down to work vs unemployment, eventually you will either go back to your “crappy” job or starve to death….unless, of course, you live in a socialist economy, perhaps like the one we will soon all be living in?

We can only hope my friend, we can only hope. The incapability of capitalism to deal with important things like climate change, the COVID pandemic, homelessness and the upcoming housing crisis has shown just what a pathetic system it really is. Hopefully, people will wake up to the reality that socialism isn't the CCCP red-scare totalitarian state that the ignorant fools are always yelling that it is. Psychopathic leaders can turn any economic system into a nightmare.

If nothing changes, we're looking at a dystopian future because capitalism has outlived its usefulness. Holding on to it would probably have a similar result to what happened in France when Louis XIV tried to hold on to the monarchal system. It scares me but I do believe that it's only a matter of time before the masses grab their pitchforks and start building guillotines.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well, because they've out innovated and out-engineered our kids ability to catch up and giving no thought to who was going to pick up the slack; they find themselves in a bit of a tizzy now don't they!

They sure do.

Plus they sent all electronics manufacturing jobs to China over the past 25 years (10,000 American factories shuddered) to meet wall street's financial targets for shareholders and stock portfolio holders, they didn't give a freak about mentoring our kids over here because money is all that mattered.

That's capitalism for ya.

They didn't care if it was a communist country and a threat to our country and that China was getting trade secrets.

I don't care if it's a communist country but China isn't run like a communist country. It's run like an authoritarian dictatorship. The problem with China is that their civil war was fought between two psychopathic dictators. Our "democratic" education systems made damn sure to tell us that Mao Zedong was an evil dictator but they very conveniently left out the fact that the leader of the Chinese Nationalists, Chiang Kai-Shek, was no better than Mao and considered Western ideas as "foreign".

The atrocities committed by Mao's regime, while demonised heavily by the West, were nothing new in China because they weren't any different than the atrocities that the Nationalists were committing earlier. The flooding of the Yellow River in 1938 which resulted in the deaths of millions comes to mind. China wouldn't have had good relations with the West regardless of which government and economic system they had. Hell, Russia's not communist but that doesn't mean that Putin is a friend of NATO either. Psychopathic leaders can make ANY governmental and/or economic system look like a nightmare.

Money is all that matters man!

Kinda makes you wonder if capitalism is all that it's cracked up to be (I sure don't think so anymore).

The closing of manufacturing facilities in this country has left communities depressed and run down with low paying wages caused by the Chinese undercutting us

Don't blame the Chinese. It's not their fault that we were greedy enough to take them up on their offer. The whole time that the US government was trash-talking China, they were turning a blind eye to rich capitalists sending American jobs there just so that the fat cats could rake in even more cash, American workers be damned (and they were damned).

and caused the opioid crisis that leads to run-ins with law enforcement, thus all the violence you see on the news. When the chickens comes home to roost it's not going to be pretty.....Out!

Absolutely. The greed and indifference that are emblematic of capitalism causes incredible suffering. The problem is that when someone lives in a country as large and as populous as the USA, you could have 30 million people in dire straits but that's still less than 1 in 10 so it's very possible that the majority of people never even notice. You know, the saying "Out of sight, out of mind." is very apt because people have so much to worry about these days that most don't have the time or energy to worry about another thing that they can't even see.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Of course, electronics manufacturers cannot find skilled technicians, since that is a very underpaid profession, and difficult to find a job anyplace.

One of the biggest problems with capitalism is the existence of the underpaid professions. When something is referred to as "underpaid", it means that the people doing the job deserve more than they're getting but the rich capitalists who run everything don't give a rat's posterior. They want more money to swim in and even though it's 100% their fault, they cry and say that "People don't want to work". What I'd love to say to their faces would be considered very inappropriate in this forum.

I have a BS in Electronic Engineering technology, my cousin has an Engineering Degree in avionics and Aerospace, we both had to switch careers to earn our living. It would be onerous to keep travelling to other countries to find a job where were supposed to find it in the US or any of its territories.

Well, Avionics and Aerospace is an industry that has a very limited number of players. I'm an aviation enthusiast so I know pretty much all of the companies involved and the lion's share of them are in the USA. Boeing, Textron, Piper, Mooney, Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics and Raytheon come to mind. With all of those companies in the USA, it's crazy to think that you'd have to go elsewhere.

I don't know if you're American so I'm just working under the assumption that you are.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I know Canada has a lot of great universities and colleges. Back when I was growing up, I used to hear a lot about McGill, but back then, it would have been much more expensive for me to have gone there than nearby state run college in the US.

Well, it's a little different in Canada in another way. In Canada, nobody pays attention to where you got your undergraduate degree from because all universities have to meet the same standard. Having a BA in PoliSci from McGill would be no more valuable than the same degree from Lakehead or Memorial. On the other hand, having a postgrad law legree from McGill would be considerably more valuable than a law degree from Dalhousie.

Private colleges in the US were always on the expensive side. Today, I would agree that it is probably much cheaper to go to one in Canada. There are a lot of reasons why the situation developed in the US. It would take at least a small book to elaborate. Also, keep in mind that the population in Canada is less than the population of California. At one time, California had one of the best college systems in the US and tuition was free to state residents at state colleges (as it was in some other states). Things changed in the 80s as the population increased.

More like things changed in the 80s because of cuts to education spending.

As Sandy Baum, an Urban Institute senior fellow and researcher of higher-education finance said "“The reality is that when free college works — when the taxpayers are able and willing to pay for the full tuition for everyone — is when not too many people go to college.”.

Well, that's probably true in the USA. In countries like Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc. Free university is the norm and has been for so long that I'm not even sure when it started.

While Canada's population is more diverse today than it was years ago, it was more homogeneous than the US population for many years longer, which makes a difference in peoples viewpoints.

You're right about that.

An interesting article on US "free college" can be read at: https://time.com/4276222/free-college/ .

Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting!