QUOTE(Value-Price @ May 4 2014, 08:22 AM)
I graduated in 2012 and start working in 2013. Anyone in the engineering industry will tell you that is tough to get a job in 2012. If you google "engineering redundancy", there is a lot of big consulting companies making redundancy in 2012 and 2013 (post-mining boom). Number wise, out of 220 graduates, only 30+ managed to secured a job. Only 5 of them are international students.
In regards to economic prospect, Malaysia is certainly better than Australia (in Civil & Structural Engineering at least). The problem with Australia is people are being paid too much and their productivity & talent does not justified their paycheck. That is precisely why all the car manufacturer shut down their plant in Australia. There is no real economic output from Australia. The only thing that keep Australia afloat now is education and migrants bringing in money to Australia.
Due to high cost, many of the large consulting companies outsourced their work to their overseas office. My charge-out rate per hour is AUD 220. My colleague in Malaysia (graduated from G8 unis as well) have a charge out rate of RM 100 ringgit. This means that he is "6 times more cheaper than me". Hence, engineers in Australia nowadays seldom do the design work. They only do the client facing role and package the work to be sent overseas. Working in Australia hampers my technical development. You only do project management and simple technical calculations for small projects. All the big and interesting stuff was designed overseas. 20 years from now, Australia won't have a strong engineering workforce (*discount migrants from overseas).
As if why Malaysia or Asia collectively is better, I will reserve that for my next post. Running out of time, need to head out for dim sums with friends. TA.
QUOTE(robertchoo @ May 4 2014, 11:22 AM)
That is what I have been saying for the longest time but some people don't have the foresight or refuse to believe. And its not just affecting the engineering sector but its affects all sector from mining to banking. Wages in australia are just not equal to productivity levels. Its a matter of time before competitors gobble them up. I just can't see how aus can compete be other than tourism
Some observations:
1. I had no idea Engineering was that bad. Yes it's moving off cycle or has already 'peaked' (in mining and resources) but when I look at what Engineers are paid (as you say, part of the reason) and the # of jobs available to them as opposed to for the best Commerce graduates, it still makes me think (sometimes) studying Engineering might have been better - not for Malaysia but for Australia, Singapore etc. Also, even electricity companies are attractive compared to certain bank roles.
2. I don't know if Higher Education and what's left of resources can carry the country. But in Higher Education they are still shipping overseas talent by the boatload (suspect the lack of regulation or tightening in this area may be due to the size and relevance of the industry, and maybe that many people like to teach in schools rather than research). Whereas other industries might not take you with your perfect English and perfect grades, Higher Ed doesn't hesitate if you have a top overseas or Australian qualification - or at least it seems that way.
3. Would agree on productivity, some of the pay packages are ridiculous, scary even, for someone without proven experience and just paper qualifications anyone can get. But one can argue that this is an economy wide problem. I can honestly say while Australia has a lot of friendly and great people, so that you can feel a lot more welcome than in some places in Asia (at least as a tourist or resident, temporary or permanent), admin and customer service can be awful and their salaries for permanent positions and many temp positions are ridiculous (as in they can match or exceed big banks' Finance or Wealth or big 4 Accounting pay depending on circumstances).
Given all of these, and the fact that it really is an employer's or buyer's market due to saturation and competition from the supply side, it's surprising that the labour market hasn't seen downright structural declines in wages. Federal protection ensures 'equality' and 'protection' for Australians and companies and people have become complacent and less willing to hire foreign talents - and this is reflected in Australia's welfare state - but if they were to be more capitalistic and tap into locally trained foreign talents they could get the same access to skills (locally trained) at lower costs (upward supply side pressure).
QUOTE(static @ May 4 2014, 11:29 AM)
+1 on banking. We've had 3 waves of redundancy so far for the past 3 years I'm with the bank. Quite scary as you won't see it coming at all, they have cut down on hiring permanent staff as well and would prefer contractors/fixed terms instead. Was on contract for 2 years (varies from 3, 4, 6 months to a year depending on project and workload).
Wow, I agree that banking is not in a good place right now but that sounds very harsh. You are on a PR visa? What subspecialty do you work in?
Mar 27 2014, 08:33 AM
Quote
0.0333sec
0.41
7 queries
GZIP Disabled