Workload

[lahpe65]

The consulting firm I work for has been very slow for the last couple of years. We are a multi-discipline firm. Some of my engineering friends have been busy at the firms they work for. I am just curious as to the general conditions out there. Is it the firm I am working for or are others struggling out there?

 

[Focht3]

I suspect it's regional. Where are you located?



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[lahpe65]

Cleveland, Ohio area. Other firms in the area seem to be busy. Our firm focuses mainly on heavy industry.

 

[jec67]

The firm at which I am currently employed is quite busy. We are a smaller firm (5 employees), and we handle a variety of projects (residential, commercial, light industrial).

You noted that your firm is in the heavy industry sector. I too was working in that sector up until last year. I noticed a significant slowdown in the work in this sector. I believe it is the result of the "slow" economy, whereby companies are postponing larger projects until their sales increase. In my opinion, it is the result of the nature of the stockmarket, where companies are measured heavily on a quarterly basis, with little regard for the long-term outlook for a company.

Hang in there, the economy is expanding. I suspect the heavy industry players will open up their purses fairly soon. I have already seeen it with some of the companies that I used to do work for.

 

[lahpe65]

I think the variety you mentioned may also be an important factor. It is not good to have all your eggs in one basket, as we seem to.

 

[jec67]

I agree about the variety of clients. However, in my experience it is usually the smaller firms that are able to serve clients from different sectors. The projects we handle tend to be much smaller that those handled by bigger firms. Some even tied to maintenance and emergency repairs. Larger firms seem to be the size that they are through growth in a particular market sector. The fallout of that process is the "all your eggs in one basket" situation that you mentioned in your last post. It is a tough cycle for a company to break. As an employee, the tradeoff for me is that there is plenty of work, but the projects are not as exciting as say, building a new process plant from the ground up.

 

[pmkPE]

I am working in the southeast and the industrial sector is way down. Small, medium and large engineering firms are struggling, especially if they only work in industrial. We do primarily industrial and federal government type work. Ever since 911, the federal government is not spending much money on state side facilities so we are in a double whammy. The firms that do a large portion if not all of their work for municipalities are playing cut throat with their fees (and their salaries).

Tax revenues are down, due to the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China (Georgia and South Carolina have lost tens of thousands of jobs in the last few years). One of our clients built a new plant last year in the midwest anticipating a 40% rate of growth; since then they have shut down three of the nine US plants and cut all salaries by 35% in order to survive. If it weren't for the housing industry this country would be in serious condition. On the upside, for the first time in two years, our clients are beginning to sound more optimistic and are looking for better times by the end of this year.