Ouch!!! Wet rates keep going up!

I'm not surprised to hear that there are jobs near you because you are
close to Collins and Aerospace is booming right now. Unfortunately,
we don't have any large Aerospace companies in Boise. I know that I
could relocate to Cedar Rapids and have a job anytime I want one there
(a friend of mine is a Director there), but I don't want to move the
family to Iowa.

Well, I don't know how old your kids are, but this is the best place
to raise a family I've found. Lots of jobs, lots of activities, lots
of culture (due to the University), and almost no crime.

I'm not sure that I believe the HR guy about 6 figure jobs that he
can't fill though. I have heard that story before, but usually they
have such a specific set of requirements that they screen out a lot of
people that really could do the job.

Possibly. Dunno the specifics, but knowing how stupid big
corporations can be, I'd believe it.

Interestingly enough, I ran into a guy at the bank this morning who
recently took a very nice position at Procter & Gamble (they have a
large plant in Iowa City -- really the only "blue collar" jobs
around), and they are short over 100 line workers right now -- with a
starting pay of $18 per hour!

It's a remarkable economy. Everyone here is dying for workers, wages
are sky-high -- and all I hear about is how "tough" it is out there...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:


Well, I don't know how old your kids are, but this is the best place
to raise a family I've found. Lots of jobs, lots of activities, lots
of culture (due to the University), and almost no crime.


You didn't look very hard or were trying to stay close to other
relatives. There are dozens of places like that, entire states even
that qualify.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm not surprised to hear that there are jobs near you because you are
close to Collins and Aerospace is booming right now. Unfortunately,
we don't have any large Aerospace companies in Boise. I know that I
could relocate to Cedar Rapids and have a job anytime I want one there
(a friend of mine is a Director there), but I don't want to move the
family to Iowa.

Well, I don't know how old your kids are, but this is the best place
to raise a family I've found. Lots of jobs, lots of activities, lots
of culture (due to the University), and almost no crime.

I'm not sure that I believe the HR guy about 6 figure jobs that he
can't fill though. I have heard that story before, but usually they
have such a specific set of requirements that they screen out a lot of
people that really could do the job.

Possibly. Dunno the specifics, but knowing how stupid big
corporations can be, I'd believe it.

Interestingly enough, I ran into a guy at the bank this morning who
recently took a very nice position at Procter & Gamble (they have a
large plant in Iowa City -- really the only "blue collar" jobs
around), and they are short over 100 line workers right now -- with a
starting pay of $18 per hour!

It's a remarkable economy. Everyone here is dying for workers, wages
are sky-high -- and all I hear about is how "tough" it is out there...

North of Seattle (lot lower house prices) they are looking for utility
linemen, after 6 months paid training (don't know how much pay) you make
$72K a year. No takers.

Well, I don't know how old your kids are, but this is the best place
to raise a family I've found. Lots of jobs, lots of activities, lots
of culture (due to the University), and almost no crime.

Hmmm... sounds a lot like Boise.

Interestingly enough, I ran into a guy at the bank this morning who
recently took a very nice position at Procter & Gamble (they have a
large plant in Iowa City -- really the only "blue collar" jobs
around), and they are short over 100 line workers right now -- with a
starting pay of $18 per hour!

The question is: how many people are willing to pack up and move for
an $18/hour job? Unless the company pays for the move, a lot of
people at that wage level can't afford to move several states away
unless they are young and single...

It's a remarkable economy. Everyone here is dying for workers, wages
are sky-high -- and all I hear about is how "tough" it is out there...
--
In the engineering profession, it is definitely tough. I'm sure that
there are plenty of places with mid-level hourly jobs, but that would
be a pretty big step back for a salaried professional with a technical
degree and 20 years of experience!

Dean

"Jay Honeck" wrote ...
- with a starting pay of $18 per hour!


With a typical year containing 2080 hours (for the 40 hr per week employee),
that comes out to a little over $37K of yearly income. That may be enough
for a single person, but the expenses of a family quickly makes that seem
like pretty poor pay.

I don't think we'll see too many future pilots coming out of that pay group.

On Sep 22, 8:41 am, Jay Honeck wrote:
One can also view the middle between the coast as places
for big companies to "out source" jobs out of their home
locations.

Not. The outsourcing to India (and other places) continues here too.
We're running 3% unemployment here, which essentially means that
everyone who wants to work is working.

I just spoke yesterday with the HR manager of a Fortune 500 company.
He's a pilot, and a good guy, and he's totally despondent because he
can't find ANYONE to work skilled trades, for ANY amount of money.
We're talking six figure incomes here.

They're now even offering to train people from zero, and he STILL
can't find anyone worth a damn. Sadly, our workforce is chock-full of
lazy, do-nothing, video-game-playing, no-work-ethic, good-for-
nothings, and anyone that IS worth a damn is already employed.

At the hotel, of course, we're at the other end of the scale, looking
for entry-level workers. We're in a college town with 35,000 young
people -- yet Mary and I can't find *anyone*. We can't even get
anyone to APPLY for the jobs, let alone interview. It's scary.

Our latest tactic is to try to hire older, semi-retired folks. They
still remember how to work, and often out-produce their young
counterparts by a factor of 2 to 1. Unfortunately, every employer is
jumping on that bandwagon, and there just aren't that many older folks
willing (or able) to keep working.

Bottom line: There is plenty of work and opportunity in America for
those who are willing to work. The rest have been lobotomized by the
nanny state.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I think you are right on the money. I am in the education field, and
see this phenomenon first hand. We are promoting an educational system
that does not reward hands-on skills and the joy of creating things.
Elec engineering students graduate without ever having seen a
soldering iron; mech engineers graduate never having done any
machining. I once had a "top" elec eng PhD student who, when asked to
install an on/off switch for an equipment, hooked up the live and
neutral wires across the switch. After the whole place went dark with
a bang I figured out what he had done. Many of the "successful"
students have no real interest in the subject except to short-cut the
intermediate steps and become project managers, directors and CEO's
very quickly.

However, this is not to say that the entire generation is unskilled or
unmotivated. Quite the opposite is true. This generation is being
misguided by their mentors and are being taught a poor value system.
The students who are truly motivated and passionate about their work
end up not fitting the mold, get frustrated and leave. I know of a
truly outstanding engineering student who could do almost anything in
the lab, but is having a difficult time winning scholarships or
funding. The evaluation criteria is setup to reward the fast-track
students who can checkoff all the boxes.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:

Elec engineering students graduate without ever having seen a
soldering iron; mech engineers graduate never having done any
machining. I once had a "top" elec eng PhD student who, when asked to
install an on/off switch for an equipment, hooked up the live and
neutral wires across the switch.

Yep.

We hired a Dean's list EE to be a systems designer. After he had been with us
a few weeks, one of the techs asked me, "How can he be an electrical engineer
and not know anything about electricity?"

--
Dan

"The future has actually been here for a while, it's just not readily
available to everyone."
- some guy at MIT

In article ,
"Dan Luke" wrote:

We hired a Dean's list EE to be a systems designer. After he had been with
us
a few weeks, one of the techs asked me, "How can he be an electrical engineer
and not know anything about electricity?"

hopefully that statement was soon followed by a quick lesson for the EE.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

We hired a Dean's list EE to be a systems designer. After he had been with us
a few weeks, one of the techs asked me, "How can he be an electrical engineer
and not know anything about electricity?"

--
Dan

That's pretty sad... I'm an EE and I pride myself in my soldering
skills. I do most of my prototype builds myself by hand with 0603,
SOT-23, and even SO-8 and SO-16 parts. I have even removed and
replaced 144 pin Quad Flat Pack components successfully.

I have seen my share of "book smart" EE's though, so I know what you
mean. Unfortunately HR usually uses a standard list of criteria to
filter candidates, and they don't have a clue about some of the more
practical skills of the profession. Not until the other engineers get
to interview does that kind of stuff come out, and it only comes out
if the EE's doing the interviewing have a good set of interview
questions/excercises. Often good candidates get screened out long
before they ever get a chance to talk to the interview team... that is
unless they tailor their resume to get through the HR filter.

I get turned off by a lot of job req's that list a very specific set
of skills and experience, especially since often similar experience
and a good head on your shoulders will work just as well as someone
who has been doing the exact work they are looking for.

Dean

Andrew Sarangan wrote:
I think you are right on the money. I am in the education field, and
see this phenomenon first hand. We are promoting an educational system
that does not reward hands-on skills and the joy of creating things.
Elec engineering students graduate without ever having seen a
soldering iron;

Ahem. We used plug-in breadboards and wirewrap in college to wire up
circuits, not soldering irons. As we should have - we were learning
concepts, not necessarily eye-hand skills. In college you are supposed to
experiment with circuits and soldering is an impediment to that goal. And
that was in the physics program at the University of Minnesota. You can't
get a physics degree without taking the required 1 year lab course, 2/3rds
of which was electronics. (The required text was (still is?) Horowitz and
Hill's "The Art of Electronics" which a lot of people consider a classic
text. I know one of the authors used to contribute in the
sci.electronics.design group - not sure if he still does.)

mech engineers graduate never having done any machining.

While having hands-on experience with machining is nice, it isn't necessary
to doing good design work. Especially when a lot of machined items are now
done with CNC the hands-on experience has less relevance. We all live the
same number of years yet the amount of things to learn keeps growing -
something has to give. For example, machining isn't relevant to much of the
design work they'd do with composite materials, so that is yet another
reason why it is no calamity is mech engineers graduate without machining
experience.