<p>I’m specifially reffering to civil engineers since they seem the most vulnerable. If one were to be employed by the army corps of engineers, or the department of defense, or the federal highway administration, or the IRS, is it likeley a person will be laid off? (Let me refraise for clarity) In a recession will the government lay off workers to the same or similair degree as the private sector?</p>
<p>Which government branch is the most recession proof for engineers?</p>
<p>Nothing is ever guaranteed, but working for most government agencies will be safer than working in the private sector. If I’m not mistaken, the USACE is one of the organizations that is benefiting the most from the stimulus package. I don’t believe the FHWA actually does much work. Most of the work is being done through state DOT’s, and in New York at least, the design work and construction is usually given to private firms. The DOT basically manages the project as the owner.</p>
<p>The IRS does not build. It only destroys… my paychecks…</p>
<p>Work hard, make it clear to the powers-that-be that you’re a valuable asset, work for an multi-location and well-established (old) company, be involved in the company’s social events if they have any, cross your fingers, and hope that the downturn’s only temporary…</p>
<p>I always think you’re best bet would be not to try and spend all of your time and energy trying to make one job recession-proof. Rather, you should try and position your career in such a way that you would have a wide variety of possible fields that you could enter should you loose your current job.</p>
<p>In a globalized and volatile enviroment, nothing is recession-proof.</p>
<p>There are two ways of avoiding being laid off: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do your job better than anybody else and go beyond what’s expected of you.</p></li>
<li><p>Find another job before you’re laid off and you’ll have more bargaining power for a new job.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t forget that you also have to take the industry/field into consideration.
Lots of my friends who were working in land development, residential and commercial real estate got laid off.
Some of us that work in transportation, water, wastewater or utility are considerably safer.</p>
<p>USACE gives 8 year contracts to employees? Really? Or is that a hypothetical? Because I find that hard to believe anybody would give anybody an 8 year contract. It wouldn’t make sense for any company to do something like that.</p>
<p>Finding new jobs is part of life. Most people nowadays don’t stay at the same company forever.</p>
<p>I think they’re talking about signing up for a tour with the US Army, but you don’t need to join the army to work for the Corps of Engineers… They have plenty of civilian engineers, and if you sign up for the army, you’re liable to end up in a geographic region that’s a little more exciting than a cubicle.</p>
<p>I wasn’t just reffering to the army, any branch of the military. Navy, Air Force, Marine Core. </p>
<p>I like the job security and prestige and possible excitment of these jobs. I really can’t sit still and like physical activity. I’m thinking signing up for the air force as a civil engineer is what I might do.</p>
<p>My mistake. I had thought you were referring to the civilian side of the USACE (such as those involved in domestic dredging and levee projects). Joining any military branch as an officer is entirely different and I can’t imagine them being affected by the economy much.</p>
<p>Well I was reffering to both. I mean if your a civilian in the army corps of engineers, isn’t there a less chance of being laid off then if you were in an equaivalent job ni the private sector?</p>
<p>Yes, but I was referring to your comment about 8 year contracts. I’d still be surprised if anybody offers something like this. In fact, the companies I’m familiar with put new hires on a probationary period for anywhere from 3 months to a year. However, I can’t say I’m familiar with the hiring practices of the military (such as USACE).</p>
<p>You’re young an s/b flexible at this point - why so much worry about being laid off? The best way to resolve this from being a concern is to make yourself a very valuable member of the team where you’re working by working hard and being productive and then if you’re laid off regardless, make yourself attractive to other employers. Remember that most managers have an idea in their head of the relative value of their direct-reports and when layoff time comes will lay off accordingly (unless the whole team gets laid off which can happen) so try to always make yourself one of the most valuable members of the team and not the slacker.</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding a discordant note, I would say that the threat of outsourcing is deeply overplayed. Far more dangerous is simple technological obsolescence. I believe I read somewhere that for every one job that is lost through outsourcing, 10 are lost through changes in technology (but compensated for with new jobs in the replacement technology). For example, I know guys who used to work at Eastman Kodak as analog film engineers; they’ve all lost their jobs. Nobody is really using film cameras anymore. Analog film engineering skills are, frankly, obsolete these days.</p>
<p>I see this problem within engineering programs also. For example, you don’t really need to know calculus to become a highly successful software engineer. All you really need is algebra combined with (maybe) some discrete mathematics and some computation theory. You certainly don’t need to know differential equations. But most CS programs will force you to learn them anyway, at the expense of far more useful knowledge such as router or server configuration. {I’m continually appalled at the number of software developers who have never even seen a router, much less know how to configure it, even at a simplistic level.}</p>