It's just a reflection of an industry wide trend. Read ENR's 6/29/09 issue:
06/29/2009
ENR - Hard Bids, Low Costs
In less than a year the construction market has gone from owners fishing for bids to a bidding frenzy. In some cases the competition has become so intense it has taken on an air of desperation that is driving costs down to questionable levels. The resulting low bids may not turn out to be the bargains they seem. Construction cost indexes are falling as well. Steel prices are half of what they were last summer, and other materials producers are struggling just to meet the cost of production. Construction unemployment is over 19%, putting a cap on this year’s wage settlements and executive compensation. It’s starting to look like a long, hot summer.
In regards to the profession being dead, all I can say is when an architects steps onto most project sites you can almost rest assured he is the lowest paid person. I'm not even talking about the lowest paid professional. In many cases the only personnel who may be getting paid less is the apprentices whom maybe getting about $13 - $18 / hour. The profession as a whole has huge issues. We work too much and get paid too little.
There has to be a push from each individual to never, ever, ever work for free.
If you are trying to get paid for your hard work but the architects two blocks down is giving it away for free - guess who the client is going to hire? This is a crime to all those are actually trying to make a living from it and trying to possibly have a family or trying to have a financially successful practice.
If you want to improve the profession do two simple things:
1.Always get paid for anything you do.
2.Demand fair pay. (Do not underbid your peers or be complaisant about your pay, this will ultimately keep the profession underwater).
though the "Recent financial hardships" have made under-bidding a more common practice, low-balling and buying projects has been going on for years now...
i hope that the "Recent financial hardships" will serve instead as a wake up call for us to re-evaluate what has driven our profession to this point...we really need to look at our values and culture...architecture as we knew it might be dead, so we should try to resurrect something better...
5 Comments
this profession is dead, and we're the ones that killed it.
Agreed, beta.
It's just a reflection of an industry wide trend. Read ENR's 6/29/09 issue:
06/29/2009
ENR - Hard Bids, Low Costs
In less than a year the construction market has gone from owners fishing for bids to a bidding frenzy. In some cases the competition has become so intense it has taken on an air of desperation that is driving costs down to questionable levels. The resulting low bids may not turn out to be the bargains they seem. Construction cost indexes are falling as well. Steel prices are half of what they were last summer, and other materials producers are struggling just to meet the cost of production. Construction unemployment is over 19%, putting a cap on this year’s wage settlements and executive compensation. It’s starting to look like a long, hot summer.
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In regards to the profession being dead, all I can say is when an architects steps onto most project sites you can almost rest assured he is the lowest paid person. I'm not even talking about the lowest paid professional. In many cases the only personnel who may be getting paid less is the apprentices whom maybe getting about $13 - $18 / hour. The profession as a whole has huge issues. We work too much and get paid too little.
There has to be a push from each individual to never, ever, ever work for free.
If you are trying to get paid for your hard work but the architects two blocks down is giving it away for free - guess who the client is going to hire? This is a crime to all those are actually trying to make a living from it and trying to possibly have a family or trying to have a financially successful practice.
If you want to improve the profession do two simple things:
1.Always get paid for anything you do.
2.Demand fair pay. (Do not underbid your peers or be complaisant about your pay, this will ultimately keep the profession underwater).
though the "Recent financial hardships" have made under-bidding a more common practice, low-balling and buying projects has been going on for years now...
i hope that the "Recent financial hardships" will serve instead as a wake up call for us to re-evaluate what has driven our profession to this point...we really need to look at our values and culture...architecture as we knew it might be dead, so we should try to resurrect something better...
i'm for outing these bastards. they're a bunch of short-sighted prigs, and i'll tell them that to their faces.
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