Chinese Economics Thread

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paiemon

Junior Member
Registered Member
fatzergling said:
The current Western economics system is notorious for under employing PhD, even in STEM. Many a physics or a math PhD are working on various coding tasks that could have been done by even a high schooler. Whether China can figure out how to utilize PhD grads effectively in the job market is something to watch out for in the next decade.
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I would argue that the "STEM" shortage is rather overstated, at least in Western countries. There are plenty of older tech workers, especially during the recent layoff wave and during previous times who can certainly do the job, its just they want to be treated fairly for their expertise and that is something corporate executives won't accept since they want subservient labor. While there is certainly a niche to obtain talent in certain specialized fields, I have a hard time believing corporations crying poor about talent when they constantly layoff Americans and Canadians doing the same work. Also, to your point about graduate renumeration, if STEM was truly so valued, why are grad students and post-docs who arguably are dedicating their lives to cutting edge science/technology paid a pittance? If companies truly valued that work, they would be sponsoring graduate programs, fellow-ships, etc to create a path to success for students. Those do exist, but compared to the number of students in those programs its a drop in the bucket. And to be honest, schools are also guilty of false marketing by hyping up STEM. For example, Engineering is sold as if companies have huge teams of engineers working on problems, in reality the engineering team in the majority of places is small, usually double digits but there is a huge pool of supporting technical talent who may not be engineers to put those designs/ideas into implementation. And to be totally honest, 90% of "STEM" jobs can be done with some effort put into training and onboarding, companies are just lazy and cheap. I myself am in the situation where I am trying to convince my boss to bring on a student through a work placement to develop someone and build up our talent pipeline. Finally, you would think that operating in a market economy, if you have a talent shortage such as is alleged, companies should be pulling out all the stops to develop, preserve and invest in talent pipelines instead of just laying people off. After all, if your talent supply is insufficient, you should be creating incentives (i.e., paying more, training up people) to alleviate it. That's how normal supply/demand mismatches are addressed.
 
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Diaspora

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First thorium based nuclear reactor given permit to operate

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  • It has several advantages over uranium reactors, including safety, reduced waste, better fuel efficiency and suitability for use in arid landlocked areas
  • The tech is expected to strengthen China’s energy security as the nation has abundant thorium reserves
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FriedRiceNSpice

FriedRiceNSpice

Captain
paiemon said:
I would argue that the "STEM" shortage is rather overstated, at least in Western countries. There are plenty of older tech workers, especially during the recent layoff wave and during previous times who can certainly do the job, its just they want to be treated fairly for their expertise and that is something corporate executives won't accept since they want subservient labor. While there is certainly a niche to obtain talent in certain specialized fields, I have a hard time believing corporations crying poor about talent when they constantly layoff Americans and Canadians doing the same work. Also, to your point about graduate renumeration, if STEM was truly so valued, why are grad students and post-docs who arguably are dedicating their lives to cutting edge science/technology paid a pittance? If companies truly valued that work, they would be sponsoring graduate programs, fellow-ships, etc to create a path to success for students. Those do exist, but compared to the number of students in those programs its a drop in the bucket. And to be honest, schools are also guilty of false marketing by hyping up STEM.
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Demand for talent varies greatly across fields, as STEM is an incredibly diverse collection of different fields and specializations. As a whole though, in the US the average compensation for a STEM job is double that of non STEM, which indicates that as a whole demand for STEM workers is higher than that of non STEM. The presence of some workers not having the correct set of skills to fill STEM jobs does not mean there is not an overall demand for workers with relevant STEM skills.

For example, Engineering is sold as if companies have huge teams of engineers working on problems, in reality the engineering team in the majority of places is small, usually double digits but there is a huge pool of supporting technical talent who may not be engineers to put those designs/ideas into implementation.
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STEM encompasses more than just engineers and researchers. Many workers within "supporting technical talent who may not be engineers," could also be classified as STEM workers.

And to be totally honest, 90% of "STEM" jobs can be done with some effort put into training and onboarding, companies are just lazy and cheap. I myself am in the situation where I am trying to convince my boss to bring on a student through a work placement to develop someone and build up our talent pipeline. Finally, you would think that operating in a market economy, if you have a talent shortage such as is alleged, companies should be pulling out all the stops to develop, preserve and invest in talent pipelines instead of just laying people off. After all, if your talent supply is insufficient, you should be creating incentives (i.e., paying more, training up people) to alleviate it. That's how normal supply/demand mismatches are addressed.
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Yes corporations are greedy and short-sighted and they don't want to worry about upskilling and training. They want workers that are just barely overqualified for the role, so they can get immediate productivity for a sufficiently long period of time before the worker moves on to a better job.
 
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henrik

Senior Member
Registered Member
tphuang said:
Another hit piece from HW before HR


for all the talk about Chinese industries defeating Japan & SK industries, the big fish is actually America. America's export is equivalent to Europe, japan & Korea added together.

About half of the $2 trillion in export are areas that China can probably compete with America including computer components, semiconductors, military equipments, construction equipment, auto products & aerospace.

The reality is that as China grows in competitiveness, while that may destroy certain Japanese & Korean industries, the biggest victim will actually be America
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Just destroy pesky vassals like Korea and Japan as a first step.
 
56860

56860

Senior Member
Registered Member
henrik said:
Just destroy pesky vassals like Korea and Japan as a first step.
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Japan and SK industries are industries China are already dominant in, or at least have a solid foothold in. Think consumer electronics, automobiles, heavy machinery, shipbuilding and semiconductors. China is just gonna take more and more of that market share for itself and there is very little SK and Japan can do about it.

Within 5-10 years we will see Chinese companies utterly cripple the export dependant economies of Japan and SK.
 
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