[wakawaka28]

You can't have so many engineer jobs unless you have manufacturing, and if you did have manufacturing then there would be "common man" manufacturing jobs too. It's all connected. Every job market that is really critical for national security is depressed by this outsourcing and importation of cheaper goods and labor.

[bluGill]

because of automation there is often a lot more engineering jobs. one 'man' with a laser cutter can do the work of 50 with saws.

[wakawaka28]

Sure, but when you don't even have the automated process within your country then there are approximately zero jobs created of any kind. The Chinese own their own factories and make much of their own manufacturing equipment, even exporting some of it. We should be producing more of our own stuff and creating meaningful jobs for our citizens. Working on an assembly line or as a maintenance worker in a factory might strike some people as menial, but the alternatives for people with the same level of education are mostly worse.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I’ve drove a laser cutter for ten years, I wouldn’t call it engineering, more glorified dump truck driver, with a temperamental dumb truck that is more art than science to operate.

The technology has got a shinier interface since I started, but the fundamental problems are the same.

When it breaks, you call the service technician, unless your the one in a thousand employee who happens to be a boilermaker by trade, an IT service technician and software neonate, also handy with a soldering iron, can install and repair refraction systems, work on live mains safely, research and install additional power supply protection devices, lighting suppression, UPS, knows there way around layers 1 through 7…

And that company treated me like I was some kind of freak.

But yeah, generally a laser cutter operator pushes buttons, and empties catch trays if they’re lucky.

Engineers design the things, the operators are largely meat for the grinder.

[bluGill]

Exactly one person replaced 50. Meanwhile we ask more of engineers.