Does the U.S. economy do a better job than Europe in coming to grips with the challenge?
We dont do a worse job. The German engineering and plant construction sector has rationalized substantially in the last five years. Weve reached agreement with our union representatives to make working hours more flexible, to share profits, to implement models that improve our relative competitiveness. In that area, the Americans havent done very much. Also, the American plant builders are very fixated on their home market, meaning NAFTA, while the Europeans were always accustomed to exporting throughout the world. Wherever theres a boom, like now in China, the Germans are there. The Americans arent as globally oriented. And with such a big domestic market, they dont have to be. How about training of engineers? Are there differences in qualification between America and Germany? There are good engineers all over the world. We have had excellent experiences with our engineers in Pittsburgh. But I would say that German engineers are really good, especially in plant and machine constructio
We don’t do a worse job. The German engineering and plant construction sector has rationalized substantially in the last five years. We’ve reached agreement with our union representatives to make working hours more flexible, to share profits, to implement models that improve our relative competitiveness. In that area, the Americans haven’t done very much. Also, the American plant builders are very fixated on their home market, meaning NAFTA, while the Europeans were always accustomed to exporting throughout the world. Wherever there’s a boom, like now in China, the Germans are there. The Americans aren’t as globally oriented. And with such a big domestic market, they don’t have to be. How about training of engineers? Are there differences in qualification between America and Germany? There are good engineers all over the world. We have had excellent experiences with our engineers in Pittsburgh. But I would say that German engineers are really good, especially in plant and machine const
