[abielefeld]

Hi, Augustin here, one of the presenters.

As other commenters pointed out, the electronics industry is quite big in Europe, on paper it generates a lot of money and sustains a lot of jobs. The issue is a bit more complex, and you point it out when you say people around you are old and old-fashioned.

Like I said in the talk: We used to laugh at the chinese products for how low quality they were 20 years ago, who's laughing now?

I don't believe europeans are unable to turn around this situation in as many years as a matter of fact, it's my core beliefs: That together with other young motivated people we'll build our own little electronics industry for ourselves, among ourselves and people who believe we can one day have theye crazy future factories in Europe.

Yes it's crazy hard, but like you I believe things will get sufficiently bad that more will see that the effort is worth it.

You should check out the 39c3 talk from Kliment, he understands this issue so well, and I'll paraphrase him here: Electronics is dominated by old dudes, the industry is hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more. But by making an effort to give people who are starting a good experience, we can turn this around.

Honestly there is no worker shortage, in my immediate contacts, I already know 2 or 3 people who are ready to work my production line: They have the smarts, skills, and time. They are unemployed because no one would respect them, and give them a meaningful mission like we would, and it's quite clear this is quite a widespread feeling among people.

[raverbashing]

> Electronics is dominated by old dudes, the industry is hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more. But by making an effort to give people who are starting a good experience, we can turn this around.

Completely agree.

Then the Semi industry wonders why they're running out of people

[joe_mamba]

>Then the Semi industry wonders why they're running out of people

Yes but they make up with via immigration of candidates on visa. Last time I worked in semi, about 30% of colleagues were on visa from abroad. Today from former collogues still there, I hear it's close to 50%.

[joe_mamba]

>I don't believe europeans are unable to turn around this situation in as many years as a matter of fact, it's my core beliefs

Actually, I DO believe we are unable to turn it around. I've done EE work both in Europe and in China for over a span of 10 years, and what sets China apart from Europe that enabled them to overtake us is the mindset, both at government support level AND at individual level.

Chinese operated a lot closer in mentality of the US compared to Europeans, as in very cutthroat move fast and break things, wanting to ship a new product every 6 months(!). This mentality is lacking in Europe who mostly stick to slow paced industries where there's a national security, regulatory or bureaucratic moat like aerospace, defense, telco, industrial automation or automotive, but nothing cutting edge in consumer space that's dominated by China, Korea, Japan and US.

Then there's the massive investments and support from the Chinese state that's missing in European electronics industry. To get an idea compare to the massive sums Europe invests in pharma(or life sciences) versus pitiful investments in electronics for example, and you'll get what I mean.

Until those change, we have no chance, we're just dreaming and huffing copium that somehow things will magically improve out of the blue.

>the industry is hostile to newcomers, self-taught people, women, and more.

Pretty much this, minus the hostility towards women part. I've had few women colleagues everywhere I worked in EE, there's no gender hostility or discrimination, just that young girls looking for a career, aren't really into sitting hunched down over a table and soldering and probing PCB's in a lab somewhere in a techo-park in the outskirts of town as a career, when stuff like HR, marketing, brand design in the city center, is way more hip and appealing to young urbanites. You can't force people to be attracted to a specific industry or line of work. Similarly how there's not much women in construction, welding, oil industry, fire fighters, LEO, etc and it's also not due to hostility, or how there's not too many men in nursing, HR or childcare.

> They are unemployed because no one would respect them, and give them a meaningful mission like we would

I hope you realize, you're not really selling the European electronics industry optimism here with this example of skilled people being passed on for employment.

[graemep]

> There's no gender hostility or discrimination

I disagree. There is a great deal of variation between countries and companies. My daughter is in automotive electronics (in R & D rather than manufacturing) and her employer and country are at the better end of the spectrum, but there are definitely places where it is very difficult for women.

> You can't force people to be attracted to a specific industry or line of work.

That depends on culture and upbringing. If you bring girls up to think that electronics or software or whatever is a male pursuit they will avoid it. A lot of this is set in early childhood and subtly so. Have you seen the difference in the toys little girls and boys get? Or who helps dad (and its almost always dad!) with the DIY or setting up a new gadget or similar tasks? I was my kids primary parent, so they picked up I liked and I just assumed my kids were likely to be interested in things I found interesting.

[lnsru]

I am afraid, that when it gets too bad and too obvious it will be too late.

For me first steps would be turning bureaucratic ship around and making regulatory framework simpler and cheaper. With some exceptions for startups/small companies during very first months or years. The industry would be more attractive and with more demand for European electronics manufacturing. With more demand it would slowly start growing domestically. It’s insane that the rules for my 1 person company are the same as for Bosch or Siemens. I can praise good lobbyists work. There are two engineers at my dayjob that are writing mandatory documents about cadmium amount in screws or calculating sustainability parameters…

[abielefeld]

This is happening already! The 28th regime (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/the-28th-regime...) will simplify the framework to register and operate companies in the EU, also the push by the EU commission to implement the Draghi report (https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...) is one of deregularization of the industry.

Of course quasi monopolies of European industry are hoping to lobby these measures to suit them more than small players, but I am hopeful, as we have some very good legislators and politicians who are on our side.

Also Eurostack (of which Eilbek Research is a member) is a lobbyist group pushing for Draghi-adjacent policies, most of all: Relocating the entire cloud stack to Europe. And while for the bigger members of this organization it means having our own Google or Facebook (including their harms), it cannot help but inadvertently push the EU to pass laws that will further the agenda of eroding the USA-Tech monopolies.

Cory Doctorow pushes this narrative (https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/freedom-of-movement/) that this can only be a benefit in the medium term.

Things are moving in the right direction, not many are talking about it, but when things hit mainstream news, they're already old by the reality's standard.