Engineers have pilot position in aerospace jobs market

Paris: The race to sell airliners, particularly between Airbus and Boeing, is putting the aerospace companies of the world in cut-throat competition to recruit engineers.
There is a worldwide shortage of people with the qualifications needed by the companies gearing up to meet demand for an estimated 20,000 aircraft in the next 20 years.
The European airliner manufacturer Airbus for example is using Twitter accounts to talk to potential recruits and is to hold an international recruitment day on June 30th, interviewing 100 candidates from 15 countries selected from more than 6,500 applicants.
Tom Enders, who has just switched from the top management of Airbus to manage the parent group EADS, said that “the pool of talent in Europe at least has clearly become too small.”
Airbus says that of 12,000 jobs available in the sector in Europe last year, only 9,000 were filled.
At U.S. aircraft maker Boeing, the vice president for human resources Rick Stephens told AFP that the United States produced 72,000 to 74,000 engineering graduates a year but “we don’t see enough students completing engineering degrees to be able to fill what we believe will be the needs” of the aerospace industry.
Stephens said that Boeing, which does an increasing share of its business abroad, needs to attract talented people outside the United States.
Airbus goes a step farther, considering itself to be not a European but a world business.
Of 4,000 people whom it will recruit this year, 90 percent will be hired in Europe and the rest in India, in the United States, China and Russia, Baril said.
Enders said that Airbus would open an innovation unit in India to be managed by an Indian.
28/06/12 Patrick Rahir/AFP/The China Post