Std Deviation

If you step foot on a campus these days you'll see the lack of US born talent, including the professors and TAs. Tough enough to pass calc, physics, or chem, without worrying about getting through the accents.

Nursing is especially problematic namely because they don't have the instructors. Hence, they are admitting fewer people to programs which is inducing a shortage.

To be a university professor it requires a PhD. A masters in nursing can glean over 100K a year in practice. The PhD requires additional years of study (tuition payments and loss of income) and pays 50K to start. A 50% reduction in pay - no incentive to teach; meaning a reduced stream of students out the door.

johnso29

They're aren't people getting into the career anymore. That's the core of the problem.

rickair7777

[QUOTE=block30;1303823]There are more shortages going on than just pilots...I believe truck drivers, various medical professions, science, technology, engineering, and math fields I believe are hard pressed to find "native" American talent. I'm not sure how those shortages are being remedied...better pay, paid training...?


Yes, there are two huge problems here...

One is the lavish pay and benefits that state higher education systems systems bestow on staff and faculty. Administration folks at community colleges often make salaries all out of proportion to their job demands. Everybody on campus from the janitor up gets lavish benefits and typically a defined benefit pension plan.

The other problem is the current generation tends to shy away from "hard stuff" like STEM, since they are not used to working and challenges could be hard on their self-esteem.

So we (society) are paying more and more per credit hour, but what we are getting is graduates in underwater basket weaving and "fill-in-the-blank" studies.


The DoD is seriously concerned about STEM graduates...that's the real reason they decided to allow women in submarines, they doubled their pool of engineering grads to choose from. They are going so far as doing high school outreach programs, they are concerned not only about recruiting officer candidates in STEM fields but about ensuring a supply of civilian STEM grads to support the defense industry and civil service programs (such as DARPA). In most cases you need a security clearance, which requires citizenship. You can't import talent or offshore defense work...

Std Deviation

[QUOTE=rickair7777;1304055 One is the lavish pay and benefits that state higher education systems systems bestow on staff and faculty. Administration folks at community colleges often make salaries all out of proportion to their job demands. Everybody on campus from the janitor up gets lavish benefits and typically a defined benefit pension plan. [/QUOTE]

And yet they want to pay instructors with a masters degree (vs. tenure track professors) peanuts to teach courses.

RickAir, in addition to what you mention about shying away from the sciences, there's an increasing exodus to "fluff/life skills" style universities(University of Phoenix, etc.).

At these "universities" (and I use that term very lightly) there's little or no admission criteria (including standardized testing that would have eliminated most of the applicants), lower standards, and grade inflation. Everybody gets a trophy.

BizPilot

That's why the H1B visa is a big program for IT tech talent.

smugglersblues

Pilot shortages, Big Foot, Roswell, Y2K, we never landed on the moon, the Mayans 2012, what else can we add to this list ?

bozobigtop

It's ironic whereas many people here in the states including airline/aviation management considers the job of pilots no more important than a bus driver. In fact in some circles the job is viewed as blue collar and the employees should be treated as such.
On the other hand many pilots/management throughout Europe/Asia school of thought is the pilot licensing and obtaining medicals process in the US is too easy. Oh well!

bozobigtop

Many businesses/companies especially in the US are not willing to train. In fact I believe many businesses will wait until the problems are actually affecting the company's bottom line. Attempting to replace the brain-drain of any company is very expensive and the customer will not wait for a company operating in that manner. You simply take your business to another company in-which may be located overseas.

JohnnyG

We've been on 'the immediate edge' of this shortage for years. It doesn't exist and won't.

Flying activities are winding down, more routes are being deleted, more companies are selling their planes, GA is dead.....so on and so forth. I've been told about this shortage for 6 years now, at least. The numbers they are using to scare people, no matter what they say, include Indian and Chinese airlines, which are handling business with THOUSANDS of trainees a year.

I agree, there are no hours to be had at the local airports and a little more at places like ATP. ATP has grabbed up most of the small town students that want to go pro, and they still PUMP students out like it's going out of style. The backlog to get to ATP standardizations for an instructor job is 8 months right now. ATP is pumping out CFIs that are going non-current for lack of instructing jobs. At my school with 40 instructors, like 5 got turbine jobs for all of 2012.

I had to fight, kick and scream and interview my butt off then move far away for my current job instructing Chinese. There doesn't seem to be a way up and out. The regionals aren't having any trouble hiring people. They have thousands of resumes on file. People like me, CFIs, get overlooked for for regional jobs for guys with thousands of hours of turbine PIC who need any income at all to stay off the streets.

I got beat for a LOADMASTER position by a prior 747 captain who was willing to take anything above 25K a year to avoid losing his home.

I'll stay positive and keep sending out resumes every week and work on my ATP. I'll do what I do best, fly airplanes and network. I don't expect any callbacks.

As long as the economy is bad, there won't be any need at all. It's not getting better any time soon. It's only getting worse.

The next time I attend a job fair with 8,000 other CFIs and unemployed captains and 2 regionals brag about hiring 130 pilots each in 2013, I'll just laugh. What else am I going to do, punch a hole in the wall? Be thankful for what you've got. If anyone needs a job bad enough to instruct, let me know and might be able to get you in.

If you're flying turbine right now and getting a steady check, be happy. There are 21,000 hour pilots going through classes at Skywest. Getting to ATP mins is a personal goal of mine. I doubt I'll get an interview even then.

cactipilot

So Med school or Law school as an alternative- which one sounds more appealing?