Job Churn

Men crave stability - Engineering is creativity - consequently an anarchism to stability, - Monopolised professions like Medicine and Law - where there are barriers to entry, people find stability and a reasonable compensation - over a lifetime.

Engineering is contrast is a predatory profession - since there are very few barriers to entry ( a BS will do), there is a wide range in compensation , as well as in terms of ``perceived stability``.
Comsequently we find engineers making anywhere from 50K a year to over a million dollars. It relects ability, market forces, and many times opportunity and luck.

Now there is nothing wrong with being intellectual mercenaries, - you do the work and you get paid. Actually I like job churn - perhaps because I have been a direct benficiary of the same. My advice to the up and coming is develop a skill set not loyalty to an organizational body, in the end we are seeing the same trend emerge even in law, medicine and finance, with the advent of the information age, employers and/or customers are better able to guage and evaluate the contributions of their employees. Consequently it will become more difficult in any profession to cruise on past goodwill or accomplishments.

Engineering because it is much closely related production - was impacted much earlier ie in the 70`s - we are seeing similar trends emerging in the legal profession in the 80`s and the medical profession in the 90`s - the advent of huge legal practices and HMO are about to rein in the prima-donnas of both professions.

After all is said and done, - I think engineers of this generation should consider themselves very lucky, we are on the crest of the wave leading into the information age, and if we play cards right, we should do extremely well, the bright ones will probably do much better than in any other profession. 30 years from now - who knows we may be in the dog house once again like in the 70`s. But dang who cares I`ll be retired by then LOL.

Re: Pat Shah

Well said Mr. Shah. You are very much correct. Job churn may back fire as in the case you mentioned. However, in Pakistan, unemployment remains of prime concern among the engineers. Today another leading consulting firm fired 35 engineers from their office in Karachi. These guys have vowed to sue the MD and the management and are in the process of hiring an attorney.

They have decided to take up to the management unlike their counterparts who were fired a few days ago. I appreciate your astute observation and response to the article.

Best regards

Owais

Excellently written article. As a person with a scientific background I found it particularly interesting, but I think anyone who has friends or is interested in the process of recruitment would find this article nice. A few comments:

- The only engineering types I know who DON`T do the job churn as described by the author are those who are working at a company in an area that is so specifically highly specialized that the only other places that do similar work are in another country. I suppose I`m thinking more of specialized scientific research as I do. Of course, many people like this accept possibly lower salaries and tougher work conditions because they`re obsessed with the topic that they work on. That`s debatable of course.

- It`s hard to blame people to take part in the job churn as the author described. However, one has to be somewhat careful. I have a friend who has a solid information technology background who has concentrated on working at financial/brokerage institutions within their IT departments. However, after working for 6-9 months the person quits and goes on an extended break to India to relax. On returning, the demand for IT knowledge continues to be so great, there is no problem in acquiring a job at a competing financial/brokerage institution. This person is even experiencing increases in salary after jumping ship at least 6 times in as many years. However, recently, with the economic downturn in Asian countries it`s apparently not so easy to get a job in a financial institution`s IT department as before. This IT person is now somewhat stuck at their current company which reportedly is not nearly as nice as one of the earlier ones. Unfortunately, this ``job churning`` has backfired somewhat on this person.

-s_owais describes a real problem for people in Pakistan currently. It will not be a surprise as more of these talented individuals leave their country for greener pastures (and jobs) thereby continuing the brain-drain.

Nice article! But many situations discussed in the article do not apply to countries like Pakistan. In Pakistan, employees very seldom change their job. The reason is evident: the unemployment percentage is so high that employees consider it a benison to stay in job. The other day I was reading newspaper which carried a story of a lay-off of 140 engineers from a leading consulting firm in Pakistan. The laid off employees do not know where to go and how to search for new job. They were all competent employees. I happen to know large number of them. They were laid off because of scarcity of in-hand projects.

Similarly the salaries for engineers in Pakistan are at rock bottom. For example a fresh graduate in earns Rs 4000 per month. For oil and gas sector, the figures are 30 % more. The salaries are unrealistic considering the inflation and cost of living in Pakistan. No attempt has been made by the government to link the salaries with any index what so ever.

Another aspect which has recently been initiated by many sagacious organisations in Pakistan is job re-training. As the opportunities for an employee dries up in one department, the organisation with the consent of the employee, transfer an individual to another department which has a completely different job description. The employee gets the training and starts working. The good aspect is that the employee does not loses his job.

Challenge is not the only reason why people change their jobs. Nor higher salary is the criteria in many cases. Many employees are lured by other companies with promise of higher level of authority. The companies in Pakistan never study the reasons why employees leave an organisation. The reason again is unemployment in Pakistan. There is a ready supply of engineers to fill up the position. So the company never has problem regarding the unavailability of engineers. The company may suffer a little because the new employee needs time to train himself for the job. But this deficiency is overcome very soon. Costs may be higher for senior level positions but again at that level, the nature of job is managerial only.

This was a nice article; perhaps article of the month. However, I know that Wasiq Bokhari (thinking mind of chowk) would not agree with me and would apply his scientific logic to my comments and tear them apart.