<p>I was just listening and reading to the news about our (US) financial situation, and it looks & sounds baaaaddddddd......</p>
<p>How much and what do you think will be the impact of the Lehman collapse/future financial meltdown to the engineering profession?</p>
<p>Does this mean we will see the pay for ibanking people go down to the level of engineers? How about engineering layoffs?</p>
<p>Depends on your industry...</p>
<p>From where I sit, the oil industry (my field) is stable. However, I suspect oil prices to continue to decline as the economy gets worse...and pressure will be placed on all. </p>
<p>Best thing to do is maintain/increase your skill set...Talented workers will always be in demand.</p>
<p>Engineers are in great demand as talent is depleted from the baby boomers retiring.</p>
<p>The last time there was a depression this bad, the Public Works Administration was created as a means of providing employment. It spent several billion dollars in the 30s for the construction of public works... so I imagine if your field is related to infrastructure, you'll be okay even if things continue to get a lot worse.</p>
<p>Try to do something that you'll really enjoy doing. It would stink to do something for 30 years that you don't really enjoy. For some people, the fun in being an engineer outweighs the incredible salaries at other jobs that may be a flash in the pan.</p>
<p>The market will rebound. At my company, we're concerned, but progress will not stop altogether. Even now, we're still winning new structural design projects, though we don't have as much of a backlog to keep us sitting pretty as in past years.</p>
<p>Times will be a little tough through the leaner years, but the construction industry always goes through periods of growth and decline, so I'm not tremendously worried yet.</p>
<p>they are saying GE is the next one to go. GE as you know is one of the top engineering companies in the US. GE</a> shares fall to new five-year low on financial jitters - MarketWatch</p>
<p>^ Everyone is panicked and speculating. GE is well diversified to survive, IMO.</p>
<p>Unlike investment bankers, engineers, you know, actually produce useful and necessary products. I don't think society is going to let us go quite that easily.</p>
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Engineers are in great demand as talent is depleted from the baby boomers retiring.
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</p>
<p>Perhaps fewer baby boomers are retiring than you think.</p>
<p>Deleted... stupid comments, wrong thread.</p>
<p>Firstly, this is not a "financial meltdown." There is a lot of evidence that suggests that Wall Street is starting to recover (I know, its sounds funny with all this talk about these banks going under), but this is nothing compared to the savings and loans crisis. </p>
<p>Secondly, most engineering graduates have great prospects even in this economy because i. new graduates can learn fast, and can estentially do the same thing as exprienced engineers for less money ii. in order for companies to remain competetative in this new international economy, they have to be innovative, thus they hire engineers.</p>
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i. new graduates can learn fast, and can estentially do the same thing as exprienced engineers for less money
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</p>
<p>I really think it's more that new graduates can do a large volume of work with minimal direction from more experienced engineers, and not that they can do the same thing. (IE, don't get out into the real world and expect to be a "real engineer" within a few months, people.)</p>
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Firstly, this is not a "financial meltdown."
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Not yes, it's not. People will start feeling the ripple effects in a few weeks or months.</p>
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i. new graduates can learn fast, and can estentially do the same thing as exprienced engineers for less money.
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Learn fast and less money, yes. Do the same thing as an experienced engineer (one with 10~15 years experience), no.</p>
<p>Firstly, its called a governmnet bailout. Those of us who are older have been there before. And we survived, just like we will survive this. Not much ripple effect for people who buy homes they can afford.</p>
<p>Secondly, yes, an inexperienced engineer can do ESSENTIALLY the same thing as an experienced engineer. Lets look up what essentially means in the dictionary: pertaining to or constituting the essence of a thing (dictionary.com). They use the same principles and theories to solve problems, they just dont have much 'real world' exprience. Thus, they dont do the same jobs (they do essentially the same jobs).</p>
<p>*Note I never said they will be running the show; I said they can do ESSENTIALLY the same job!</p>
<p>Oh. The first time you said "estentially" and I got confused.</p>
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The last time there was a depression this bad the Public Works Administration was created as a means of providing employment. It spent several billion dollars in the 30s for the construction of public works
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</p>
<p>Come on, times aren't that bad as to invoke the Great Depression. The US GDP grew a whopping 3.3% in 2Q of 2008, and is still expected to show positive growth for the rest of 2008 and in 2009. Granted, it will be weak growth, but it will still be growth. So, forget about a depression, we're not even in recession, at least, not technically (where a recession is defined as 2 straight quarters of negative growth: we did experience negative growth for one quarter in 4Q 2007). </p>
<p>United</a> States GDP - real growth rate - Economy</p>
<p>Contrast that with the Great Depression where GDP actually declined by an ridiculous 18% in just 18 months. Heck, even in the sharp recession of the early 1980's, GDP dropped by a painful 2.9%. We're nowhere even close to that.</p>
<p>Economy</a> of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>That's not to deny that some people are feeling pain. But clearly this is nothing like the Depression.</p>
<p>ken285: I suggest you talk to your grandfather so that you can understand what the depression was like - this is nothing like the depression.</p>
<p>You guys missed have not received the memo. Investment Banking on wall street is over.</p>
<p>To those of you who are optimistic about our economy, I'd like to ask you a question: are you guys delusional, or just in denial?</p>
<p>To most of the people, we are in recession.</p>