{"id":12,"date":"2009-11-22T20:39:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T03:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constructonomics.com\/blog\/?p=12"},"modified":"2018-02-09T11:57:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T18:57:08","slug":"are-the-white-collar-forgotton-in-a-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/22\/are-the-white-collar-forgotton-in-a-recession\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the White Collar Forgotton in a Recession?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"whiteThe last Constructonomics\u00a0post\u00a0stirred the pot a bit in some civil engineering forums.\u00a0 The Sorry Kid, Construction is a Cyclical Industry<\/a> post brought some interesting and thought provoking comments.\u00a0 One of which brought about some particular interest from myself because it touched on a subject that tends to rarely get touched.\u00a0 And without going into any more drawn-out chatter, I’ll just post the comment.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the pundits were lamenting a lack of engineers in the future. Someone please tell me, what lack are we seeing now? I am probably lucky to be out of work only since last May, and every advertised position I apply for has an “overwhelming response”. And as for public works design projects, where? As far as I know, there isn’t a stimulus program for the design professionals. I empathize with the guys and gals that take a shower after work, now how about the guys and gals that take one before going to work?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Doesn’t everybody take a shower before work?<\/p>\n

Anyway, I think this commenter is a bit peeved at the fact that engineering is\u00a0sold\u00a0by companies and universities as\u00a0a relatively stable field that won’t get you rich but will most likely keep you off the streets and out of a cardboard box.\u00a0 Well, about half of that is true.\u00a0 You\u00a0probably won’t get rich, but if you don’t\u00a0have some significant money saved\u00a0you may be living in a beautiful 8 square foot mobile apartment when the construction market tanks.<\/p>\n

Is\u00a0it really worth going to school, busting your a**\u00a0doing\u00a0problem sets and studying for exams every night,\u00a0just to get tossed on the street during the inevitable downturns that have occurred in this industry\u00a0for the past 100 years?\u00a0\u00a0I’m sorry, but the answer is just no.<\/p>\n

The government is now pushing like hell to get going on “shovel ready” projects.\u00a0 Well, that’s great if you are an excavation contractor or a paving guy, but what about architects and engineers that need\u00a0fresh projects coming in the door to get paid?\u00a0 Well, I’m sorry, but the group of architects and engineers is just too small compared to the millions of construction laborers, craftsmen, and equipment contractors to really make a difference. Giving the bailiffs rights of entry<\/a> and bankrupting a few architects doesn’t affect the economy in the least,\u00a0and if nothing else will probably get a\u00a0good chuckle from the folks at the job site.\u00a0 However, I do think there is some blue collar\u00a0monkey business that should at least be discussed.<\/p>\n

I worked with ironworkers who made $100k a year with a suspect high school education and some jail time under their belt. I wasn’t making that much with a master’s degree in engineering and 7 years experience.\u00a0 They also had union benefits which are pretty damn good.\u00a0 I also worked on a job were a\u00a0likely illegal\u00a0immigrant from Mexico was making $90k a year as a labor forman – far more than\u00a0any of the project engineers with degrees in construction management, civil engineering, and construction science.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0know that getting these folks back to work is\u00a0very important, but just because the white collar people have more formal education and work in a squeaky clean office doesn’t mean they are\u00a0except from the phone bill and it\u00a0also doesn’t mean that they’ll make plenty of money when things do pick back up again.<\/p>\n

The point is that the\u00a0folks that work in the field on\u00a0construction sites are doing just fine.\u00a0 And if they get about 10-15 hours of overtime in per week, they are doing better than fine – they’re kickin’ butt.\u00a0\u00a0They work hard, and they deserve to get paid and get back to work, but office folk work hard as well and\u00a0often it’s for less\u00a0money than\u00a0the field guys.<\/p>\n

Screw college man,\u00a0we\u00a0should just go erect steel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last Constructonomics\u00a0post\u00a0stirred the pot a bit in some civil engineering forums.\u00a0 The Sorry Kid, Construction is a Cyclical Industry<\/a> post brought some interesting and thought provoking comments.\u00a0 One of which brought about some particular interest from myself because it touched on a subject that tends to rarely get touched.\u00a0 And without going into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4,5,6],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-construction-blog","tag-construction-economics","tag-john-poole","tag-white-collar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1544,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}