is s'pore losing engineers?

[Leckmichamarsch]

Exactly!

Engineers are amongst the lower castes of the highly educated and the working professionals, despite their exalted status in school belonging to the top math and science classes. If engineers were important, they would be paid like doctors, lawyers and accountants, instead of ughh....engineers.

Nishi Pundek in IDA graduated as engineer w IT n has MBA from SPU ... South Pole University???

 

[xebay11]

Exactly!

Engineers are amongst the lower castes of the highly educated and the working professionals, despite their exalted status in school belonging to the top math and science classes. If engineers were important, they would be paid like doctors, lawyers and accountants, instead of ughh....engineers.

Non engineers unless they work in the bank, what jobs would pay them well and which industries? I can't imagine graduate glorified admin clerks can get good pay.

 

[Hans168]

We have plenty of ah nehs and Zhong guoren plus Pinoy engineers. How many more do you want? Both have combined population of more than 2 billions.

do you want to eat by the roadside or food courts????????????????

 

[Hans168]

lancheow lah. local engineers lost their jobs to cheaper FT engineers with fake degrees

& CB employer happy like shit - getting shitty jobs done cheep cheep. Classical case of penny-wise pound foolish

 

[mojito]

Non engineers unless they work in the bank, what jobs would pay them well and which industries? I can't imagine graduate glorified admin clerks can get good pay.

Good engineers are very versatile and highly sought after for lucrative jobs. One is heading the largest sovereign wealth fund in the region.

 

[xebay11]

Good engineers are very versatile and highly sought after for lucrative jobs. One is heading the largest sovereign wealth fund in the region.

See, what I said is true, you need to be a graduate to be an engineer, you don't need business administration degrees to be an over glorified office boy doing office work, sure get low pay and end up drive taxi once retrenched.

 

[MadrigalWheel]

Back in the 90s you throw one stone can bounce off 10 engineers heads.

Everybody also had an "engineer" title, regardless of whether diploma, NTC (as it was called then) or degree.

Now everybody also hardup to have some banking or finance title attached to their name, throw one stone can bounce off at least 20 people with the word "analyst", "broking", "financial", "banking", "risk" in their job title.

LOL, now banking soon going to go down the toilet, only the smartest, strongest and most cunning will survive.

Engineering as an occupation is on the rise again because investors start to realise they actually need good people to keep those assets running.

What comes around, goes around I guess.

 

[dancingshoes]

Back in the 90s you throw one stone can bounce off 10 engineers heads.

Everybody also had an "engineer" title, regardless of whether diploma, NTC (as it was called then) or degree.

Now everybody also hardup to have some banking or finance title attached to their name, throw one stone can bounce off at least 20 people with the word "analyst", "broking", "financial", "banking", "risk" in their job title.

LOL, now banking soon going to go down the toilet, only the smartest, strongest and most cunning will survive.

Engineering as an occupation is on the rise again because investors start to realise they actually need good people to keep those assets running.

What comes around, goes around I guess.

i almost end up working in citibank many years ago but i was backstabbed by my ex-boss. so is life...

 

[NanoSpeed]

i almost end up working in citibank many years ago but i was backstabbed by my ex-boss. so is life...

You are logged in as dancingshoes now, bro. Don't hijack somebody else's dialogue.

 

[dancingshoes]

You are logged in as dancingshoes now, bro. Don't hijack somebody else's dialogue.

hi bro nano, i dun get ya?

 

[Hans168]

Good engineers are very versatile and highly sought after for lucrative jobs. One is heading the largest sovereign wealth fund in the region.

that CB never hv any solid experience as engr
upon graduation joined MINDEP as Procurement Officer... then CIS as deputry director in engineering dept becos was courting crown prince then
thereafter became boss of SISIR which later merged with NPD to become Spring,,,,,,, following that sprinboaded to ST as co MD with Wong Kok Siew........... rest of the impressive promotions is history
BUT where is the engineering training & experience?? Like paper general izzit???

 

[MadrigalWheel]

Once upon a time, Engineering Graduates were hailed as one of the best professions in terms of starting pay.

Unfortunately, as Singapore developed and it migrated away from capital intensive development works towards a services economy, many Engineers were left high and dry chasing after a smaller piece of the pie as capital investments into product development went instead to financial services and business research.

A pity that money was used as a means to grow money itself, and those who benefited were in the banking sector while the value of actually earning profits from the producing of a tangible, physical product became passe or taken for granted.

Just as some of us shake head whenever we hear our kids think that chickens and produce come from supermarkets, the devalued talents of the Engineers into marginally higher paid "smart" technicians is the true unwritten tragedy of Singapore Inc.

 

[xebay11]

Once upon a time, Engineering Graduates were hailed as one of the best professions in terms of starting pay.

Unfortunately, as Singapore developed and it migrated away from capital intensive development works towards a services economy, many Engineers were left high and dry chasing after a smaller piece of the pie as capital investments into product development went instead to financial services and business research.

A pity that money was used as a means to grow money itself, and those who benefited were in the banking sector while the value of actually earning profits from the producing of a tangible, physical product became passe or taken for granted.

Just as some of us shake head whenever we hear our kids think that chickens and produce come from supermarkets, the devalued talents of the Engineers into marginally higher paid "smart" technicians is the true unwritten tragedy of Singapore Inc.

Just send the cheap foreign engineers home, the demand for real engineers is still very strong.

 

[MadrigalWheel]

Just send the cheap foreign engineers home, the demand for real engineers is still very strong.

The problem lies not with foreigners but rather the needs of profession to maintain viability itself. Of all the major professional qualifications, Medicine, Law and Engineering, Engineers have the least exposure as a form of service, e.g. - working with patients and/or handling clients, and are heavily dependent of capital intensive nature of spending money to make more money (machinery, infrastructure, process).

So, for example, while a GP takes on the role of front line health care and the dispensing of pharmaceuticals and the lawyer provides services to ensure compliance to concurrent legislation, the Engineer's role does not have a similar exposure to the front line customer. Even if there was, it would be on a maintenance basis, i.e. - If nothing goes wrong, no one gives a hoot that the Engineers keep it running, but when something breaks down, blame is easily attributed to technical personnel.

Thus, an Engineer only gets valued when they are in a position to build multi-million/billion dollar projects, and even then, their time in the sun is but limited or at least till the project is handed over to the client.

And in Singapore, projects such as these are far and few due to the size of the country and population, therefore local engineers are bereft of such exposure, thus requiring experience from overseas to ensure that should such amounts of capital be invested, the most capable person is found to ensure the biggest bang for the buck.

So in summary, Singaporean Engineers are well and truly in the toughest profession with the least financial return.

 

[JohnTan]

Once upon a time, Engineering Graduates were hailed as one of the best professions in terms of starting pay.

Unfortunately, as Singapore developed and it migrated away from capital intensive development works towards a services economy, many Engineers were left high and dry chasing after a smaller piece of the pie as capital investments into product development went instead to financial services and business research.

A pity that money was used as a means to grow money itself, and those who benefited were in the banking sector while the value of actually earning profits from the producing of a tangible, physical product became passe or taken for granted.

Just as some of us shake head whenever we hear our kids think that chickens and produce come from supermarkets, the devalued talents of the Engineers into marginally higher paid "smart" technicians is the true unwritten tragedy of Singapore Inc.

While engineers have one of the best starting pays, they have amongst the lowest pay and amongst the poorest career prospects in the long run.

Nearly all the successful engineers I've met are people who managed to ditch the engineering job and move on to management positions. Successful doctors, surgeons, bankers, lawyers can stay in their original profession. Very few successful engineers stay as engineers. At most, they will tell you that they studied engineering or had some engineering background, but they made their breakthrough by moving up the value chain, away from the engineering job.

Engineering courses in the university take up the bulk of our undergraduates. You can say that engineers make up the bulk of our PMETs, or on the flipside, engineering takes in any riff-ruff.

 

[MadrigalWheel]

While engineers have one of the best starting pays, they have amongst the lowest pay and amongst the poorest career prospects in the long run.

Nearly all the successful engineers I've met are people who managed to ditch the engineering job and move on to management positions. Successful doctors, surgeons, bankers, lawyers can stay in their original profession. Very few successful engineers stay as engineers. At most, they will tell you that they studied engineering or had some engineering background, but they made their breakthrough by moving up the value chain, away from the engineering job.

Engineering courses in the university take up the bulk of our undergraduates. You can say that engineers make up the bulk of our PMETs, or on the flipside, engineering takes in any riff-ruff.

Unfortunately, your commentary about moving up the "value chain" is endemic of most Singaporean PMETs who have the ability to regurgitate motherhood statements with the lack and inability to provide any fundamental analysis.

The poor prospects of engineers are systemic to Singapore whereby the name of the game is to maximize profits from infrastructure and neglect any service standards. Case in point is the utter lack of engineering expertise in MRT and a whole bunch of talking heads making corporate sounding statements that are mere facade for the multiple excuses that they make.

It is due to the creation of monopoly or cartel organisations aligned with Singapore Inc that has suppressed any meaningful feedback in terms of what service standards customers or users demand that has hollowed out the technical know-how that an experienced Engineer can provide. Consumers are therefore forced to accept bare minimum service levels as there is no competition and therefore no necessity for these monopolies to improve or keep on their toes through further capital investments to offer a better product.

Your idea of a "value chain" is therefore myopic, one-sided, narrow-minded and a bottom-rung management cliche at best, useful only in the Singapore context, whereby "value" does not encompass knowledge retention, continuous process and method improvement and product research.

Only an experienced engineer can evolve into, and create such systems, but unfortunately, Singapore Inc. sees it fit that Engineering Management is unnecessary and just another line item on the wrong side of the balance sheet.

And if the finest example of a practicing Engineer is that sole egoist that insists on attaching a Er. title but still sprouts broken and unintelligible English worse than a hawker stall auntie that scratches the itch on her CB in public, Singapore has got a lot to catch up in realising the true value of Engineering.

 

[mojito]

Engineers in SG are glorified technicians, a blue-collar, low-class work perfect for hungry FTs.

 

[JohnTan]

Unfortunately, your commentary about moving up the "value chain" is endemic of most Singaporean PMETs who have the ability to regurgitate motherhood statements with the lack and inability to provide any fundamental analysis.

The poor prospects of engineers are systemic to Singapore whereby the name of the game is to maximize profits from infrastructure and neglect any service standards. Case in point is the utter lack of engineering expertise in MRT and a whole bunch of talking heads making corporate sounding statements that are mere facade for the multiple excuses that they make.

It is due to the creation of monopoly or cartel organisations aligned with Singapore Inc that has suppressed any meaningful feedback in terms of what service standards customers or users demand that has hollowed out the technical know-how that an experienced Engineer can provide. Consumers are therefore forced to accept bare minimum service levels as there is no competition and therefore no necessity for these monopolies to improve or keep on their toes through further capital investments to offer a better product.

Your idea of a "value chain" is therefore myopic, one-sided, narrow-minded and a bottom-rung management cliche at best, useful only in the Singapore context, whereby "value" does not encompass knowledge retention, continuous process and method improvement and product research.

Only an experienced engineer can evolve into, and create such systems, but unfortunately, Singapore Inc. sees it fit that Engineering Management is unnecessary and just another line item on the wrong side of the balance sheet.

And if the finest example of a practicing Engineer is that sole egoist that insists on attaching a Er. title but still sprouts broken and unintelligible English worse than a hawker stall auntie that scratches the itch on her CB in public, Singapore has got a lot to catch up in realising the true value of an Engineer.

If engineers are that valuable, they wouldn't be paid so poorly. Neither would the entrance requirements for engineering in our local universities be amongst the lowest of all the faculties.

The market has for years decided that engineers belong to the lower caste of the PMETs.

The only good engineer I've ever seen was Tony Stark, and he's a fictional character.

 

[MadrigalWheel]

If engineers are that valuable, they wouldn't be paid so poorly. Neither would the entrance requirements for engineering in our local universities be amongst the lowest of all the faculties.

The market has for years decided that engineers belong to the lower caste of the PMETs.

The only good engineer I've ever seen was Tony Stark, and he's a fictional character.

Your idea of "market", fortunately for talented Engineers, is narrowly focused on the available industries within the red dot called Singapore.

The world itself sees a huge demand for Engineering expertise as essential resources, as major players spend billions on technology, design, infrastructure and research, with the Engineer in the thick of it to derive from these concepts and commercially apply them into automation systems to drive down the cost of business and make redundant empty vessel talking heads like you.

While in Singapore, a band-aid fix via cable tie is lauded as news worthy and the pinnacle of Singaporean Engineering.

Quoting fiction as well show how weak your ability to present cohesive arguments are and how naive you are from the realities of the value multiplier Engineering is to visionaries and far-sighted industry leaders.

 

[JohnTan]

Your idea of "market", fortunately for talented Engineers, is narrowly focused on the available industries within the red dot called Singapore.

The world itself sees a huge demand for Engineering expertise as essential resources, as major players spend billions on technology, design, infrastructure and research, with the Engineer in the thick of it to derive from these concepts and commercially apply them into automation systems to drive down the cost of business and make redundant empty vessel talking heads like you.

While in Singapore, a band-aid fix via cable tie is lauded as news worthy and the pinnacle of Singaporean Engineering.

Quoting fiction as well show how weak your ability to present cohesive arguments are and how naive you are from the realities of the value multiplier Engineering is to visionaries and far-sighted industry leaders.

Doesn't change the fact that engineers in the long run are paid less than doctors, accountants, lawyers and bankers.