<p>aibarr: you are changing the discussion now that I proved you wrong. You still have not told me quantitatively how much "a lot" is.<br>
BTW: you gave no facts to back up your views either. </p>
<p>ken285: If you are such an expert, prove me wrong, show that there is not outsourcing going on. It should be easy right?</p>
<p>I did Ctrl+F to find "a lot"</p>
<p>
A lot of structural is now being down overseas and emailed back to the states where a PE signs the work.
</p>
<p>This is where a lot is first brought up by you, me_eng. You should be the one defining what a lot is since you brought it up. </p>
<p>This is by no mean ad-hominem, but I think you have communication or logic problems.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with rheizan, you seem to have some sort of communication problem. aibarr already stated that she gave specific quantities to her boss, why do you feel the need to know exactly what those quantities are? You want someone to define what "a lot" is, yet you are the one who said, "tell your boss you need a lot of steel for your next building and see what happens". You have also failed to answer ANY of ken285's questions regarding the type of structural drawings you are talking about, nor have you provided any information on specific journals you are referring to. You are trying to portray the image that you know EXACTLY what you're talking about, yet you have yet to provide any evidence for any of your claims. This should be easy to do for someone who has any idea what they're talking about. Please, get a life, and leave us alone. Most people on this forum do a great job of providing very useful information for curious/lost college students, and we are very grateful for the time they take to answer our MANY questions. If you have nothing positive to contribute please keep your opinions to yourself.</p>
<p>lollerskates.</p>
<p>Nevermind me. I'm the idiot and I hate myself... I'm gonna kill myself now, bye bye world... FXUK me!!! arrghhh :frustrated:</p>
<p>On the bright side, I found out the edit fx works 10' after the initial post or last edit... :p</p>
<p>Uh, I think he said he was agreeing with you, and everything that you put in bold, he was talking to me_eng.</p>
<p>There are a lot of reading problems in this thread!</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. I really appreciate it. I'm still deciding between a Civil or Structural undergrad degree but I have gained many insights to help further my decision. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Don't civil/structural engineers have the highest employment rate out of all the engineering fields? lol Last thing I would be concerned about is outsourcing in that field though it happens, but not often.</p>
<p>
[quote]
ken285: If you are such an expert, prove me wrong, show that there is not outsourcing going on. It should be easy right?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You are the one who's making the claim. Therefore the burden of proof is on you. </p>
<p>Also, since you're the one who's making the claim, why don't you just tell us what your source of information is?</p>
<p>One actual source of concern that ought to be considered is a loss of major projects due to work stoppage in uncertain economic times.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the phones of every structural engineering firm in the nation are ringing off their hooks because clients are calling to put projects "on hold." When people panic and the market gets skittish, developers throw on the brakes and stop investing money in new construction, sometimes to the extreme-- one massive project, for example, had already planted six floors' worth of a major resort hotel when the call came to the contractor to stop everything, put your tools away, and go home until we call you.</p>
<p>From an engineering standpoint, this means that they'll pay you for the work you've already done, but they're not going to continue to pay you for anything more that you do. If you're still in the design phase, the future building evaporates into a pile of paper and man-years of work that may or may not ever come to fruition. In the construction phase, you may have several people doing construction administration who now no longer have anything to work on (though it's rare, almost unheard-of, to have established construction projects evaporate like the one I mentioned earlier). You can go from having a very healthy backlog to having absolutely nothing to do and no money to pay people with if you're not a well-managed, diversified company who anticipates this sort of thing.</p>
<p>Even so, the best-managed companies have heartache during markets where everyone's too afraid to do anything but worry. My company, a major player in the marketplace, just laid off a bunch of people on Tuesday. Granted, it was only 6% of our workforce, so it's hardly "massive layoffs," but it still stings. Structural firms invest a TON of money per employee per year in training costs, so layoffs are rare and hiring is done judiciously. My company spends an exorbitant amount on its employees per year--something like three times my salary, on average. So, I see a third of that money, but TWO thirds go towards my extraordinarily good benefits and my training and my education and the like. It's rather astounding, how huge an investment structural personnel are for the firms that employ them.</p>
<p>This economic downturn isn't a reason to steer clear of structural engineering, by any means, though. As a practicing engineer, it's mainly just incentive to stay ahead of the curve, continue to hone your skills, stay involved with company or professional society technical committees, and work hard.</p>
<p>It is fairly alarming to see projects evaporate like this, though. Ken, are you seeing any of this sort of thing on the construction engineering side, or is this pretty much a design phenomenon?</p>
<p>Funny you should bring this up because my company just lost a couple of projects from one of our biggest clients this week, if not the biggest. We already had people staffed but I'm not sure if we broke ground on those yet. We had mobilized for at least one though. My company is trying to spread these people on to all our different projects. These losses weren't really a surprise though (to me at least) as the client specializes is luxury residential high rise development.</p>
<p>What's hurting us the most is our overseas parent company. They do a lot more real estate development than our company does here, so they're really being hit hard.</p>
<p>A competing company has had a multi-billion dollar project partially put on hold because of the lack of financing. They also have a lot of legal, political, and community issues, so I doubt money is the main reason for the hold-up, though it is important.</p>
<p>One fairly large construction manager in the NY area just announced a merger with another company. Rumor has it they were out of work though I don't really have any facts. </p>
<p>On the bright side, it looks like one of my company's billion dollar projects is still alive and kicking (it's a mixed-use development). Also, we have a multi-billion dollar project for a higher education institution that's on going and should keep us busy for 10 years. We still have a significant amount of work for hospitals and healthcare institutions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Granted, it was only 6% of our workforce, so it's hardly "massive layoffs," but it still stings.
[/quote]
We haven't laid anyone off, though we're trying to find homes for a couple of people. I'd estimate it's closer to 3% or 4%.</p>