For a change, i thought on a weekend i would shift a little bit away from the topic of salaries. Although if you read the whole article you would realize that i could not keep myself totally away from it. So,here we go:
I came across these two articles at the same time which made me think what is happening in this world and more importantly, what is the future going to be like? Well, I would like to remain optimistic.
So the first article was about Spanish economy which is the fourth largest economy of European union. The number of unemployed people in this economy is 2.8 million out of a workforce of just 20 million. There are long queues outside unemployment office right from 5:00 am in the cold morning. A Computer Technician, standing in the queue, lost his job just because his company lost a Bank contract.
Its quite common these days with firms ,especially with software firms, to loose a lot of business if its dealing with A Bank or a financial institution because of the current credit crisis. Subsequently, the firm starts laying off people to do cost cutting. Still, the field where maximum job loss has occurred in Spain in the last 12 months is the construction sector. Unfortunately though, service sector in Spain is also slashing jobs now, almost as fast as construction sector. Salaries in Spain are already 34 percent lower than European Union average and experts believe that salaries have to be cut further 20 percent in order for Spain to maintain competitiveness in international market and might even have to leave Euro! A recently laid off, anonymous employee who worked as a manager in a manufacturing firm said that there are 300-400 applicants for a job that pays 1000 Euros/month.
US-CHINA-EU FLAG source:treehugger.com
Next, Lets look at situation in China where Employers like General Electric, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Ernst & Young are struggling to find engineers as Chinese universities fail to turn out qualified professionals, especially those who speak English. It’s really tough for companies like GE to find people who are strong in technical expertise and bilingual. The shortage is threatening expansion plans and driving up salaries in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. In the first half of this year, average annual wages/Salaries in urban China rose 14.3 percent from a year earlier to US$1,160, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. Lets take the example of a software developer Zhang who used to work for IBM for 2000 Yuan (approx. US$293 per month). Within 6 months Citibank hired him for twice as much and now he earns 10000 Yuan per month. According to him job security is not a problem in China.
Even though a third of China’s university graduates receive engineering degrees, international companies cannot find enough engineers. Many graduates are not qualified because they are steeped in theory and have not learned to handle projects or work in a team, McKinsey said in its report. Many companies are responding to the shortage by expanding internship programs and sponsoring university training programs.
In a nut shell if you are an English speaking engineer in Spain, Its time to move to China...lol:-)!!!!
Read the detailed article about Spain here
and about China here
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