Great posting today, and these concerns are legitimate and important. Three comments to add perspective: (1) Those larger national firms you mention were attracted to acquire local engineering firms for the unique expertise & experience possessed by specific individuals who still want to stay in NB. If we don't want to see the sector start from scratch again, it is important for those local individuals to be mentoring the next generation of experts here in NB rather than at a head office elsewhere. (2) I would be curious to know if there will be a cycle of local spin-offs from these larger companies as selected younger individuals decide they would rather work for themselves. That happened in NB before... and (3) Do not limit UNB's engineering expertise just to the (great) consulting engineering services firms. UNB Engineering alumni are also involved in many of the new startups we see in recent years focusing on new technology and product development. Kudos to NBIF and university-based technology entrepreneurship programs for their support in this regard.
I am very curious about how StatsCan gathers the data to generate the chart you shared. If a construction project is done in NB by one of the national/international firms and the project manager is local, but CAD work is done in AB, IT support provided out of QC, and HR out of ON, are they able to capture that level of granularity when those distinctions are all taking place within a single company?
I actually work for a larger engineering company, though in an IT role, and from my limited vantage it seems like work is spread across geographies sometimes because of expertise but other times because one region has less local work at the moment, so you increase utilization by bringing them onto projects in other areas until there is another local project.
Great posting today, and these concerns are legitimate and important. Three comments to add perspective: (1) Those larger national firms you mention were attracted to acquire local engineering firms for the unique expertise & experience possessed by specific individuals who still want to stay in NB. If we don't want to see the sector start from scratch again, it is important for those local individuals to be mentoring the next generation of experts here in NB rather than at a head office elsewhere. (2) I would be curious to know if there will be a cycle of local spin-offs from these larger companies as selected younger individuals decide they would rather work for themselves. That happened in NB before... and (3) Do not limit UNB's engineering expertise just to the (great) consulting engineering services firms. UNB Engineering alumni are also involved in many of the new startups we see in recent years focusing on new technology and product development. Kudos to NBIF and university-based technology entrepreneurship programs for their support in this regard.
Your point 3 is very well taken. Many of the IT startups have UNB engineering grads as founders.
I am very curious about how StatsCan gathers the data to generate the chart you shared. If a construction project is done in NB by one of the national/international firms and the project manager is local, but CAD work is done in AB, IT support provided out of QC, and HR out of ON, are they able to capture that level of granularity when those distinctions are all taking place within a single company?
I actually work for a larger engineering company, though in an IT role, and from my limited vantage it seems like work is spread across geographies sometimes because of expertise but other times because one region has less local work at the moment, so you increase utilization by bringing them onto projects in other areas until there is another local project.