more on Learning to Lose?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Wulf Losee <qx49 () comcast net>
Date: December 8, 2005 11:47:26 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Learning to Lose?

Dave:
Augustine fails to see the contradictions of his own argument. Why  
should any American high school grad pursue a job in engineering or  
science when all the technical jobs have fled overseas? Teenagers see  
the writing on the wall. If I had kids planning to go to college, I'd  
steer them away from pursuing a CS or EE degree, because there just  
aren't that many opportunities any more.

I've been a data networking engineer for the past 15 years, and the  
future looks pretty grim. Frankly, I don't see any shortage of highly  
educated professionals out there (especially in my field!) -- most of  
the older CS professionals I know are either unemployed or under- 
employed. I feel very lucky, indeed, to have a job in my chosen field  
right now.

I place most of the blame on the shoulders of America's corporations ...

1. Who refuse to invest in employee training and development
2. Who hire workers with H1-B visas when there are scads of  
unemployed engineers across the country
3. Who turn away perfectly good job applicants looking for a  
"perfect" candidate -- who must match an impossibly complex array of  
experience and skills

...probably all because it's cheaper to hire that H1-B applicant --  
or, better yet, send the job overseas.

As for foreign engineers being better educated, well, perhaps. But my  
job puts me in contact with engineers in India and China, and I  
wouldn't say they're any more or less knowledgeable than homegrown  
engineers -- they just work for less. And it *always* irks me when I  
have to explain the basics of the IP protocol to an H1-B visa holder  
with network engineering title.

Ultimately, I suspect this will be the death knell of the US being  
the incubator for new technologies. And I wonder if it won't be the  
death knell of American prosperity, too.

--Wulf


At 08:04 PM 12/8/2005 -0500, you wrote:


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: December 8, 2005 2:50:58 PM EST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Learning to Lose?
> Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
>
> Learning to Lose?
> Our Education System Isn't Ready for a World of Competition
> By Norman R. Augustine
> Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A29
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/  
> AR2005120501548.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns>
>
> In the five decades since I began working in the aerospace industry,
> I have never seen American business and academic leaders as concerned
> about this nation's future prosperity as they are today.
>
> On the surface, these concerns may seem unwarranted. Two million jobs
> were created in the United States in the past year. Citizens of other
> nations continue to invest their savings in this country at a
> remarkable rate. Our nation still has the strongest scientific and
> technological enterprise -- and the best research universities -- in
> the world.
>
> But deeper trends in this country and abroad are signs of a gathering
> storm. After the Cold War, nearly 3 billion potential new capitalists
> entered the job market. A substantial portion of our workforce now
> finds itself in direct competition for jobs with highly motivated and
> often well-educated people from around the world. Workers in
> virtually every economic sector now face competitors who live just a
> mouse click away in Ireland, Finland, India, China, Australia and
> dozens of other nations.
>
> Soon the only jobs that will not be open to worldwide competition are
> those that require near physical contact between the parties to a
> transaction. Visitors to an office not far from the White House are
> greeted by a receptionist on a flat-screen display that controls
> access to the building and arranges contacts; she is in Pakistan.
> U.S. companies each morning receive software that was written in
> India overnight in time to be tested in the United States and
> returned to India for further refinement that same evening. Drawings
> for American architectural firms are produced in Brazil. Call-center
> employees in India are being taught to speak with a Midwestern accent.
>
> This movement of U.S. jobs to other countries has few natural limits.
> Manufacturing jobs were the first to go, but jobs developing software
> and conducting various design activities soon followed.
> Administrative and support jobs are starting to move overseas, and
> even "high-end" jobs such as professional services, research and
> management are threatened.
>
> Other nations will continue to have the advantage of lower wages, so
> the United States must compete on the basis of its strengths.
> Throughout the 20th century, one of these strengths was our  
> knowledge- based resources -- particularly science and technology.  
> But the
> scientific and technological foundations of our economic leadership
> are eroding at a time when many other nations are building their
> innovative capacity.
>
> This nation's trade balance in high-technology goods swung from a
> positive flow of $33 billion in 1990 to a negative flow of $24
> billion in 2003. Two years from now, for the first time ever, the
> most capable high-energy particle accelerator in the world will be
> outside the United States. Low-wage employers in this country, such
> as McDonald's and Wal-Mart, create many more jobs than do high-wage
> employers. In 2001 U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation and
> related costs than on research and development.
>
> Today, high-technology firms have to be on the leading edge of
> scientific and technological progress to survive. Intel Corp.
> Chairman Craig Barrett has said that 90 percent of the products his
> company delivers on the final day of each year did not exist on the
> first day of the same year. To succeed in that kind of marketplace,
> U.S. firms need employees who are flexible, knowledgeable, and
> scientifically and mathematically literate.
>
> But the U.S. educational system is failing in precisely those areas
> that underpin our competitiveness: science, engineering and
> mathematics. In a recent international test involving mathematical
> understanding, U.S. students finished 27th among the participating
> nations. In China and Japan, 59 percent and 66 percent, respectively,
> of undergraduates receive their degrees in science and engineering,
> compared with 32 percent in the United States.
>
> I've recently had an opportunity to review these trends as chairman
> of a 20-member committee created by the National Academy of Sciences,
> the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.
> Congress asked the committee to examine the threats to America's
> future prosperity. The panel was a diverse group that included
> university presidents, Nobel laureates, heads of companies and former
> government officials. We agreed unanimously that the United States
> faces a serious and intensifying economic challenge from abroad --
> and that we appear to be on a losing path.
>
> [snip]
>
> The writer is the retired chairman and chief executive of Lockheed
> Martin Corp.
>
> Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
>
>
>
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