Electronics and the Economy
Hi all, my name is John Kohlbach and I am an Electronics Technician and I have my own repair business in Brisbane, Australia. I have started this blog to promote discussion among fellow Electronics Technicians.
I am interested in knowing what effect the current economic conditions are having on other Technicians, both in Australia and other countries. Has the economic downturn affected your workload, income or new-hires?
The impression I get from a number of Technicians is that the repair of Electronics is a dying trade. My personal opinion is that it depends on what area you are working in, but it does appear to be changing dramatically.
The consumer market has become “throw away” in the low dollar sector as the cost of repair can be greater than the repair cost, assuming you can get parts. Maybe this will change with the economic slow down that is happening, maybe not. Time will tell.
If you look at the commercial or industrial electronics sectors, the equipment tends to be around for a good number of years, even tens of years. Are there many Technicians involved in this sector?
I think that new skills are definitely required to survive. Maybe we are in a technology transition again, similar to the valve(tube)-to-transistor or transistor-to-integrated circuit eras.
I think it would be interesting to see what the average age of Technicians . Is this because of a decline in the number of people entering the trade? What is the average age of Electronics Technicians now, and how does it compare with 10, 20, 30 or more years ago? Does anyone have the statistics?
Thank you for reading
John Kohlbach
www.kohlbach-electronics.com
May the faults be easy and your work rewarding
Tags: australia, brisbane, economy, electronics, repair, technician, technology
I think i’ve seen this somewhere before…but it’s not bad at all
Hello I am an electronics tech in the North West corner in the United States. This been poor for me, I almost exhausted my primary unemployment benefit and will have to play for an extension. I have been unemployed for six months. I lost my job due to the company sold it product line.
I have been a technician for 24 years starting in the US Navy. The thing is much change my more have not. New technologies like CSP (putting the ball grid substrate directly on the board) make rework impossible. In many manufacturing (that did not go to China) most jobs are in engineering. There are some jobs is service mainly medical, telecommunications and biomedical. Right now thing are tough form me and I a step away form being homeless.
One new shift I notice, particularly with Intel is the need to know some software developments well as hardware. These days much function that was done with discreet components are done with firmware.