We're still hiring -- but only engineers please

The Recruit section of Singapore's main paper The Straits Times has since dwindled to a woeful, 26-page affair last Saturday, ending a gloomy week which saw oil traders wonder aloud about job security at the numerous APPEC cocktail parties, amid times of sticky credit and liquidity, and freefalling energy prices.

But this has not prevented Abu Dhabi Polymers Co., better known as Borouge, from taking out a full-page, color ad on page 3 of the job classifieds section, seeking engineers to fill 90 (yes, ninety) positions that promise “a very attractive tax-free remuneration package PLUS subsidized medical care [emphasis in original].”

The benefits don't end there.

The ad further beckons engineers with experience to relocate to Ruwais -- where the company's second olefins and polyolefins complex will be up and running in 2010 -- with semi-furnished housing with furniture allowance, education assistance for up to four children, and an interest-free car loan, among other goodies.

On page 10, Shell was also seeking at least two engineers with mechanical and electrical backgrounds to work at its second steam cracker and a monoethylene glycol plant in Singapore, also well in advance of its scheduled completion in 2009/2010.

I'm not aware whether Borouge or Shell have also placed ads in other media. But the lengths that petrochemical companies need to take to hire engineers, even during such ominous economic times, are perhaps symptomatic of the global shortage of qualified technical personnel.

In recent years, the acute supply of engineers has contributed to delays in the start-up of a number of petrochemical plants globally, just as Middle Eastern states embark on ambitious mega projects to cash in on their edge of cheap and available natural gas feedstock, while China marches onward to petrochemical self-sufficiency with no less construction sites.

Talented engineering graduates have in recent years shunned taking on precisely those jobs that their academic training intend for them to do, with many choosing to apply their highly sought after numerate and analytical skills instead in careers in the less hazardous and more glamorous world of banking and finance.

In an attempt to entice engineering grads to become engineers, the Singapore Chemical Industry Council has even joined hands with the city state's Economic Development Board to arrange an “open house” on Jurong Island -- its very own petrochemical and refining hub -- to show students and their family members that theirs can be a safe and exciting industry too, the SCIC chairman said during an interview with Platts earlier this year.

Perhaps with the demise of the investment bank and less openings in the remaining relatively unscathed financial institutions, the next graduating class of engineers would now consider applying for entry-level engineering positions that might one day lead to careers in companies like Borouge or Shell.

Seeing two chemical companies still hiring gives this petrochemical market reporter some cold comfort about his job, though nothing was more reassuring than seeing a separate ad by his employer -- even if much smaller and in modest grayscale -- on page 19.