Shortage of automotive engineer in Michigan - let's go there!

According to iTalent LLC in Troy, there's a shortage of automotive engineer in Michigan as there are more demand for automotive engineer than the number of people looking for job itself. It goes even to the level where "even their skills at the edge of automotive" they can get a job. The recent graduate can even earned USD120k a year, and there's an example of Tennessee-based recruit got USD17,000 annual salary increased and 20% more bonus to move to Michigan.

Chrysler alone is looking for 300 people. This is far cry from the situation in 2009 when GM and Chrysler was in trouble where the unemployment rate in Michigan was 14.2%.

How does this compared to Malaysian automotive engineer? I honestly think the automotive engineer in our country is poorly paid. If you are in the wrong company, even with 5 years of continuous employment, RM5,000 a month is a distance dream. There is also a question of standard of work quality. There's always a guy/girl in the company which does not know the wheelbase of the one (if not all) of the car his/her company is producing. It was like they sent out 5 million CV and when they were called in, they will ask their friend " Ni company yang buat kereta tu kan?".

Honestly it is a pity for them. This is after all quite an exclusive industry where the overflown of interest and passion definitely are making a lot of difference. It should be brought back to the 1985 era when a batch of pioneering engineer work on the national car project. It was a dream job back then. It was respectable even. My personal opinion is that, the reputation has been dragged down by the complacent senorita who keep killing the motivation of ever-fired young engineer with "change the world" attitude. Their passage towards making the Malaysian car more modern, higher quality, pleasantly operated and nicely assembled has been made extra difficult by people who prefer to be lazy, to prefer for the car parts to be self-assembled after a quick throw to the manufacturing line, who prefer to accept the inferior quality, who prefer not to exercise their engineering brain and instead choosing layman solution, who prefer to propose to reject countermeasure and the list goes on.

Anyway, I left automotive engineering world in 2007. Although I did make a comeback (albeit via oil and gas company, and doing spesifically powertrain alone), I still think this arena is still workable and enjoyable. It is just that sometimes passion is overule by financial.......