How did 9/11 shut down research?
-the markets get jittery
-companies start worrying about their stock price
-laying off 200 $50k-a-year employees saves the company $10m
-however laying off 200 workers sends the wrong signal to the jittery markets
-better to lay off 10 $50k-a-year physicists
-that saves the company $500k
-but that also saves the company $10m in R&D costs (lab overheads; expensive equipment etc etc)
-no one notices the lay off of 10 nerds
Here in Ireland, in the months following 9/11 the Big Three: Dell, Microsoft and Intel all announced 2 year moratoriums on hiring; that's 90% of Irish physics graduates out of work straight away. Two years later, the moratoriums were extended... around 2005 hiring started again, except they all stipulated that they would only hire those who had graduated in the last year (after not hiring anyone for five years).
Hence we have an entire lost generation of highly educated science graduates who are stuck working minimum wage jobs.
Add to this situation the fact that Irelands population is only 4 million. In 2004 Ireland opened its jobs market to workers from other European countries... within 6 months 400,000 immigrants had joined the labour force. That means a level of competition that has reduced everyone to the minimum wage.
You Americans have it easy.
The Luke
