Anytime large companies say "we can't find people with the right skills anymore" they always omit the other half of the sentence "at the price we want to pay". Also todays college grads have so much more information about companies and are selective about where they want to work.
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Not sure what the goal was here: to spotlight someone's jet ride and aerobatic teams of the world, or have a serious discussion about military and defense.
Military shows led to my own engineering career with DoD in the '90s. I enjoyed it, but today I'd prefer civil aviation. One reason is certainly the neocons' excellent adventure in Iraq and the unabashed global dominator we've become since.
Another is that we used to care that the weapons actually worked. But the bigger the budget, the less it matters whether the gadget works, never truer than since the megamergers. The F-35 and that helmet are exhibit A; Kelly's Skunkworks LockMart is not.
Any notion that YouTube millenials aren't saavy on military tech is absurd. But riding such pigs, the defense sector will continue to seem "slow" and unattractive to grads who want meaningful work, knowing they can count on five years with most employers if they're lucky.
Meanwhile, the Air Force isn't suffering for recruits, and the Boeing spokesman isn't complaining about any labor shortages here. He's repeating the global mantra of a corporation that can't outsource American industry fast enough.
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The article "Military Spending Is Up, but Aerospace and defense Workers Are Scarce" is a great article supporting the benefits of the increase in spending capital in Aerospace and National Defense. The Military, currently undergoing some changes to their line of duty with a short hand of soldiers is trying to bring out the best in the recruiting efforts. I feel like the Government putting in the money for training is great and will help the need for more soldiers. With more issues in Today's Military the demand is big for U.S. military recruiters. This article is a great read for those interested in the armed forces and helps recognize that the Military has a lot ahead of themselves in terms of capital spending and the demand of soldiers.
"Best version of themselves" must have attached to it: "within a certain 'anti' group". Because the USA military recruiter is already limited to this particular group of people, the recruiter is already defeating himself.----
When I say anti, I mean, for example: anti-gay, anti-female, anti-equality. Thus, because of this "anti", the military is anti-brilliant. People with Brilliant IQs will not work for the USA military because it is too dull in its thinking. The USA military needs to "reach for the stars".... and that includes... rainbows and brilliant atmospheres. Right now, it doesn't.
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There seems to be a lot of Russians in this country.
Maybe they can be hired.
1
Gee, won't it be great if we couldn't build all those bombs and missiles. What would we do it we couldn't kill each other 100 times over.
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I believe it will be a terrible wrong strategy and practice to stir up conflicts in the world to stimulate military demand in order to cushion the lost civilian orders from China trade war.
1
Ahh but of course, dazzle the kiddies so some eager beavers might actually want to hop aboard and fly one of these machines themselves. You know, the machines so expensive they push all our other national social priorities out of the way and which every day America flies over civilian neighborhoods worldwide, incinerating countless faceless human beings who dare to live in countries that do not genuflect to the United States government. Then, back to the air shows, cause its the entire population of America that must gaze up admiringly & patriotically, or else how to ease through another $100 billion increase in the Pentagon war-preparation budget with nary a protest.
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@TritonPSH Do you have any proof that would support your second sentence?
Since 9/11/01 a mere 0.75 % of Americans have volunteered to wear the military uniform of any American armed force. While the rest of us aka House of Trump pretend to be brave honorable and patriotic Americans by rising to sing the national anthem and salute the flag at sporting events.
America annually spends as much on it's military as the next eight nations combined. Including 9x Russia and 3x China. But from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria to Gaza to Congo to West Bank to Rwanda to Sudan to Somalia to Pakistan to Myanmar, America has failed to deter and defeat it's foes in furtherance of American interests and values.
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Sounds like a great reason to help American kids with their college tuition payments. Either working a deal for them to serve in the military or in one of the defense industry companies, or by just giving them a break on the interest charges that result from kids having to borrow to go to college and pay the high tuition.
But, then again, helping kids with tuition debt isn't as sexy as putting on airshows where pilots wear half-million dollar helmets to sell the sizzle.
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De-constrict the security clearance pipeline.
If you want to recruit top talent, you can't expect them to wait months or years to be able to start doing their jobs.
Don't water down the investigations. Give the investigators more resources.
5
''People are quite keen about the military..'' - I disagree.
I think Americans (after decades of war, where the goalposts keep moving). are sick of the military. (especially when inordinate amounts are spent in lieu of infrastructure or social programs at home)
I think Americans(and the world) are becoming much more pacifists than people (especially in the military) are willing to admit.
This is a good trend.
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I worked for a defense contractor on radar software for about 10 years. It was my first job after Grad-school and a welcome relief not to have to worry about my job going south (like my start-up did when I was in school). Six year contract? Sounds good.
The work was interesting, the benefits where good. The work/life balance was excellent and made up for the pay that was below the private sector. When the layoffs started happening you noticed you were working in a strange bubble and those skills aren't that applicable to the private sector. So now you have lower pay, less stability and not good future prospects. I am unlikely to go back.
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I joined the aerospace industry as a new Ph.D. in 1968. The pay was excellent, the work challenging and exciting. Design decisions were made by at all levels by engineers based on sound technical analysis. The normal work-week was forty hours, except for exceptional situations.
By the time I left for academia in 1974, the "bean counters" were slowly, but steadily gaining control, technical considerations were taking a back seat to financial ones in design decisions, and "un-paid overtime" was becoming standard.
I would hesitate to begin a long-term aerospace career today.
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Ah yes, those bean counters. They came out of the woodwork when I was with Hughes Aircraft Co and GM bought us. Where the engineers were king the MBAs came out of the woodwork with all their pertinent knowledge of engineering. Most of the really talented engineers left.
Now an engineer who has an MBA is usually worthwhile. Engineers respect each other if they know their stuff. The absolute worst is a MBA who was a bad engineer. I knew some of those also.
However in short, it is much easier for an engineer to earn an MBA, then an MBA becoming an engineer. That I have never seen.
9
The lack of jobs is tied directly to the shifting of work overseas to cheaper labor markets, (China, Vietnam, etc). Along with every passing year there is no connection to the physical Labor it takes to do all kinds of jobs in this country. The cruel irony is that we have our own cheap labor resource at our southern border who when they get to this country take almost all of those Jobs Americans won't or don't want to do. Instead of embracing that and getting these people into this country as is necessary, we've embraced the dark side of our nature. Exclusion and a lack of a comprehensive immigration policy is not the answer.
10
The military has so much cash it has no idea how to spend it. That's how you end up with Futures Command.
3
There's always money for war, isn't there? Perhaps the lack of candidates should be viewed as a good thing. Stop going to war! When was the last time PEACE was on the ballot in this country?
Why should kids join to die who knows where on behalf of a government that uses them as cannon fodder?
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@D
Trump's path to re-election is paved with a convenient war with a convenient country. The drum up starts about two years before the bombs start falling. It's all theater for distraction. Maybe he can get Condi Rice back to warn about mushroom clouds? The soldiers are in it mostly for the right reason, but once the covers are removed ultimately they are tools of the oligarchs. It's mankind's oldest stage production, and it works every time.
Maybe Trump will grant H-2 visas to Saudi,Chinese, and Russian avionic technicians.
What could go wrong?
19
Working for Aerospace companies are not a path to big salaries or the big bonus. The projects take years, the work reviewed, the discipline constant. The projects are amazing in their technical complexity and full of the bumps and hardships that make engineering not only fun but challenging.
After doing aerospace for over 30 years and having a good time doing it I must admit there are pitfalls, such as using the technology in stupid wars. Oftentimes I feel like the person who gave the Mafia a better baseball bat to break knees with. My whole adult life was either active/reserve military and aerospace. I'm not as proud as I once was, mainly sobered that perhaps myself and my fellow engineers worked so hard only to give the fruits of our efforts to a traitors like Mr. Trump and the GOP.
40
I began a career as a aircraft mechanic in 1978 working for Braniff Airways. The pay was great. In 82 Braniff went bankrupt and after a couple of years I was employed by American Airlines. After years of pay cuts, benefit give backs and no raises I left the industry and now make quite a bit more as a consultant.
The fact that the airlines are now farming out much of their maintenance to the lowest bidder, often overseas and that they consider aircraft maintenance a liability to the bottom line there is no enticement for a young person to get into the field.
Anyone considering joining the military looking to retire to a civilian aviation job after retirement will spend their life barely getting by financially. What was a great job is now nothing but a dead end.
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