The Risk Factor

Solutions:

1) Give incentives for retiring workers to stay on.
2) Hire workers from other tech industries that are being laid off.
3) Develop on-site training an education to aid those who have the potential ability but do not possess the exact skills.
4) Hire older workers.
5) Tap into the home school educator's with incentive programs for future college graduates.
6) Refrain from depending on foreign workers.
7) Refrain from outsourcing
8) Establish work-study programs for university students
9) Establish scholarships for university students
10) Provide monetary incentives (tax, rebates) for re-education
11) Create a weekly TV series that glorifies working in the aerospace industry (consider how the series CSI and others has spark an interest in that area)

1. The total number of individuals only matter if you work in a factory or are a ditch digger.

1a. Complex products being built, and complex products being built in large numbers are two different things. Since defense high tech items are so expensive, large numbers will be unaffordable anyway.

1b. The money spent on defense goes to corporation's masters to a greater extent than to their employees.

1c. How defense contractors choose to behave in regards to salaries and workplace conditions today and in the future is a mystery known only to their owners (and possibly their managers) and they only think as far as the next contract, their stock options vesting and their time to retirement.

2. That factories are moving to China is an issue in that:

2a. That as people retire here means greater opportunity for those who don't, but only if there are any jobs left in the US.

2b. Products made in China will be insecure and unsafe.

2c. China will buy corporations in the US to increase their influence over politicians here.

2d. China may simply buy corporations here in order to destroy them, to destroy US infrastructure and will to resist.

What can be done?

1. Trade protection - vote out those who support free trade, free world trade.

2. Change laws to make corporations more transparent and accountable to their own employees.

3. Put those who are behind the mortgage mess,
low interest loans that fuel speculation, Bernanke and the moneyed lawyers behind bars.
(It's all part of the same thing.)

4. Shrink the military and the military-industrial complex. Stop the US from continually being the world's policemen.

I wouldn't recommend anyone invest in a career that depends on Congress for funding - that is too unreliable, likely to change with each administration. The only hope is to privatize the industry, and that won't likely happen.

Give the kids some hope - some reason to study.
Obviously nothing in aerospace or NASA today is getting the kids excited. Space Solar Power is the key to the future, but it is not for the timid:
http://www.sspi.gatech.edu/military-energy-alternatives.ppt

The same problem is everywhere.

1. The world is globalized. The key advantage to the US is how to manage people from all over the world. Emphasize that advantage
2. Have a value added to the military. Not only for wars, but to protect the people from other threats. Gain people's trust, so that new money can flow in via taxes. Possible ones are volcano eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, asteroids, etc.
3. Invest highly in top of the line research. Let the old research (not susceptible of further use) to fall into the US corporations. This has two advantages. 1st it attracts the best people in projects that can be used later to further increase their income, and 2nd, every dollar spent has at least 15-20 dollars generated by the economy when the mid corporations make profit out it.
4. About the school system. Forget it, it's doomed already. Any sort of solution will take 20 years to see the results. Meanwhile, we cannot stand still. Best thing to do is to keep hiring the best people, regardless from where they are from.
5. Do give more incentives to stay working longer.
6. Make a few clear goals for the next 20 years. Like Nasa's mars 2020, there has to be something to inspire people.
7. Marketing. Go out and sell. There's a market for good engineers and it's on demand. Go get it, the right way. Pay them enough money.
8. Make projects profitable themselves. If a new radar is required, then use the academia to gain traction on the basic laws of physics, then extrapolate the results.

My thoughts are directly related to viewing the industry as "old fashion."

I had a co-op with soon bought by Northrop Grumman while getting my Computer Engineering Degree. I worked for Grumman for 2 solid years and got along great with my co-workers and boss, it was a great job. Always interesting, challenging, fun, good pay and benefits as well.

After I graduated in 2003 every application was to be applied for online, not always an easy task to follow up on and impersonal – a large portion of my job offers came from places I applied to via mail or at career fairs.

During my co-op at Grumman, I tended to notice that the company was generally hiring seasoned veterans of the defense industry. I did not pay much attention to who I worked with at the time, looking back on it now I generally reported to and worked with people who had been there for over a decade, were retirees hired as consultants, or the newer employees held a PhD with other job experience. Others were just offered lower starting salaries with little incentives compared to non-defense industry work. This is the reason I did not continue with that career path. I truly enjoyed and felt like I made a difference while at Grumman. Yet I did not see much future hope for someone at my age in that company. It was not just NG that I got to witness this at – former classmates worked for Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and BAE. All of them only worked there for 1-3 years before quitting or being laid off.

What you learn in college is only a small stepping-stone for what you must do once working. I believe proper training and mentoring is the root cause for the upcoming challenge these companies will face over the next decade - replacing the retiring workforce that made them even richer at start of this century. It was not the younger generation that ditched the Aerospace Industry, but vice versa.

I have worked at Aerospace/Defense related companies most of my adult working life. It is not a bad job but you must strive to learn as much as you can from every assignment no matter how boring or mundane. I did my time in lower management and soon realized how easy I could be replaced in a downturn if I did not keep up my technical skills. That was back in the late 80's and I have lived everyday since with this in mind. If you are content to just put in the minimum everyday you will find yourself on the receiving end of more boring job assignments, being overlooked for challenging assignments and possibly on the receiving end of a pink slip.

Every job is what YOU make of it. Don't depend on others to take care of you!

Instead of raising wages as incentives to keep people, Boeing can always go to China where it's cheaper. After all, isn't that what all the other U.S. industries are doing?

The US Industry has great opportunity in India to outsource the jobs and get highly qualitative and Technical services along with updated service gains

In a free market, a shortage of aerospace engineers would lead to higher pay for those engineers, providing an incentive for more to enter the field. The article referenced above seems to claim the problem is that young people aren't acting rationally by going into science and technology majors at universities. I'm inclined to think that students today are just as smart as they were in years past, and something else is wrong. Maybe the students see that aerospace is a volatile and cyclical industry, and they realize those high-paying jobs may not be there in ten years. I also suspect that the aerospace industry isn't a well structured market--lots of government influence, wages and salaries distorted by unions, and limited competition for big contracts. Boeing probably can't raise the starting salaries for new engineers due to union rules. Most likely, what we are seeing here is the beginning of a lobbying effort for a big government handout. Labor wants more government-funded training, and management wants more big government contracts and H1B visas. Personally, I'm voting with my feet and staying out of the industry.