I don't know what to say.... Other than the fact that there are (at least in my view) not enough Aerospace Engineers in the US. Any more, we get a lot of people imported from other nations for our most critical jobs... Because Americans are too lazy to do the work to get the tough jobs like AE.

If you are from Ecuador and get your degree, I'd contact SpaceX/Virgin/Composite Industries/NASA/ect and ask them what you can do as a foreign national to join their team. If they really need your expertise, they will get you here on a Visa.

Odd that NASA is still an option. Didn't they lose 50% of their funding alongside the termination of the shuttle program?

I don't think they lost half their funding, but thousands of people have/are being laid off as the shuttle program ends.  Which makes it hard to believe SpaceX is having problems finding qualified applicants.  Though with housing prices the way they are, moving from Texas to California might cost you more than being unemployed for a while.

This is why I have always believed the best way for the government long term to help with the employment and future of our economy and country is to spend money funding college education. A tuition reimbursment program aside from PELL in which the government invests in repaying your student loans AFTER graduation regardless of employment and after grades are established to ensure theyre not footing the bill for a potential dropout would go a long way, imo.

Also another program perhaps where for volunteered time at a hospital, soup kitchen, humane society etc. during school tution credits can be established to encourage those who arent in a position to take on student loans (unemployed, laid off career path change) to go back to school.

Not everyone is meant to go to college.  A lot of people would be better off going to a technical school than wasting time and money on a degree.  The more people with college degrees, the more worthless they become.

From the article

"Matching talent to position is notoriously difficult in high-tech fields. Yet these execs aren’t talking tech.  They’re talking about manufacturing workers, trades people and truck drivers."

Do you really want a world where you need a four year college degree for these jobs?

The first company mentioned, Siemens, has laid off over 21,000 people worldwide over the past three years.  I don't know if those line up with their open positions now, but there is probably a reason the jobs aren't filling.  They are probably offering entry level salaries and hoping to get people with decades of experience.

Well, let's see. The unemployment rate in the United States is currently 9.1 (down from last year!). The United States population is 312,414,000. That means 28,400,000 US citizens are unemployed.

With 3,200,000 job openings... even if they ALL got filled, there wouldn't be much of a change made. 3.2m from 28.4m... that's going to lower the unemployment rate from 9.1% to 8%. Woo-hoo. Still have 25,000,000 unemployed.

That's not how unemployment is calculated.

yea you do realise that a percentage of the total population is either retired, a baby or at school or rich enough not to work going off total population is stupid

=|

Yeah, y'all are right. Silly me.

The rate is still pretty high.

edit: The number categorized as "unemployed" in the US is currently 14 million. So it's still vastly greater than the 3.2m and the point absolutely still stands.

The point doesn't stand as much as you'd think.

Thing is... 5% unemployment is standard. When times were GREAT we had 5% unemployment.  (And really 5% unemployment is way better then say, basically all of europe was back when times were good.)

Unemployment is currently at 9.1%. 

So around 7.4 million of those people would be unemployed when times were good.

Leaving us with 6.6 million... so by filling those 3.2 million jobs we'd cut the "problem" unemployment nearly in half.

Though it'd likely rise again as the drop in the unemployment rate would lead to more people who aren't currently looking for jobs begin looking again.