Steve vRS

On hang on.

UK has run out of Engineers

That's why tuition fees for science and engineering should be half those for 'arts' degrees as when you make something, you are creating wealth and furthering the wider community. Discuss....

Steve

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Did you actually read the story beyond the first sentence? It's Airbus softening the EU governments up to the fact that it's about to move its engineering to India because their grads are cheaper. And unsubtly hinting that bigger subsidies might prevent this from happening. It doesn't matter how many engineers the UK produces, if Indian ones are cheaper.


M

DCI Gene Hunt

1 in 4 - employable nice, wonder what the other 3 in 4 are engineering?

The storey doesn't hint at cost, purely availability... so I fail to see where the cost factors into this decision.

D

Trout

iTrader: (1)

The Indian ones are lower cost and there is a huge number every year to cherry pick from so you only get the very best - far more than in the UK - probably 20 fold the UK University output.

DCI Gene Hunt

Cost is not the driver though, it's availability.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

"UK has ran out of Engineers"

Bollocks. What they are looking for really is "assembly workers" or "trained fitters". This is akin to "Refuse Handling Engineer" (binman).

I say this as they were lauding it when I went to uni...."we NEED engineers, NOW, everyone needs engineers, the world will stop without engineers. Fast forward four years and I'm finding my degree in engineering useless due to the excess number of engineers, all of which don't meet the employer's "criteria" beacuse of either:

a) They want to pay eff all (I could get more money working as a manager at Mc Donalds via their fast track managment scheme). Also many roles are on short term contracts; Who wants a 3month/6month contract with little prospect or assurance of work come renewal time?

b) Their human resources are more often than not useless; relying on recruitment consultants to do their donkey work who are equally as incompetent (for example one large UK employer frequently advertises for engineering recruits and gives details to apply at the human resources dept...who then refuse to deal with individuals applying as they only deal with agencies).

c) Very few organisations are putting money where their mouth is and doing proper graduate recruitment intiatives via affilated universities that are tailored to ensure the graduates they churn out is of adeqaute standard to gain employment in the required areas. Obviously restricting intake criteria so only worthy candidates go on the course, rejecting any useless feckwits who just can afford to pay the tution fee because daddy pays for it.

d) Due to a) ,b) and c) the screening system for potential employees is inadequate. Resulting in numptys being employed without proper trials and fecking things up, or worthy candidates being rejected because of the gross emphasis placed on previous experience without consideration that to employ a young individual, you need to give them experience for them to gain experience. Or experienced candidates go looking elswhere as the contract term doesn't give secure long term propects, or the wage is simply just too low, or relocation packages give little incentive to the social disruption it causes.

This is partly why I'm an engineer who works in accounts Why should I work for the likes of Jaguar when their HR dept is useless, they will only employ me on a 3month contract and don't really give a salary package worth snifffing at....sorry I'd rather hammer nails into my spine so I can claim disability instead.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Agree with Ali.

[-(o)-]

iTrader: (1)

+ 1. Another engineering grad here. I bailed out as prospects looked poor and with hindsight made the right decision. Had to start again, but I'm now in a secure job with nearly enough experience to move onto better money than I'd have had as an Engineer. I regret not 'making' things, but with the state of UK manufacturing I don't loose much sleep.

And another +1 for incompetent HR types.

Tidgy

construction its taking an **** shafting at min, compnay i have worked for have just shed 3k workers, 20% of the workforce, taken them about a year to do it though. Also government pulling funding has cost 600 jobs directly.

finding decent grads is extreamly difficult. Also clients are demanding cheaper rates forcing work to be offshored to india etc.

how do you save 20% on an already tight budget?