Where a Paycheck and the Supply Chain Meet

by Lou Zacharilla

New York City, June 1, 2022--I am not an economist but rather a keen observer.  I know how to watch a 401k fall to the bottom of an elevator shaft. 

I am also a patient listener. I heard my financial advisor say that “market capitulation is right around the corner and NOW is the time to get back in.” The only thing that went right around the corner is the back of that bus that hit the global economy.  The result has been the Great Strangling of the supply chain. For those who protested against the evils of “globalization,” how you feeling now?

But take heart. Here’s an outlook from an economist who said that “falling demand for goods will alleviate some labor and supply chain pressures.  This will in turn tamp down key ingredients of inflation. Declining stocks (ok, plummeting stocks) could drive some people back to the labor market. As Conor Sen responded in Bloomberg Opinion: “Isn’t this exactly what we wanted?”

In the commercial space and satellite industry, according to people who are on the front line of things like Human Resources and the support of logistics and things such as supporting humanitarian relief efforts, which the industry does endlessly, it is indeed.

The overall employment data for our industry is actually good. Globalization is good for wages in industry’s like this.  In fact the commercial space industry not only prefers globalization, it thrives on it.  

The industry has many virtues. The proximity to death perhaps one that is a tonic for our collective Soul. We depend on each other as a matter of physical survival.  Just read the accounts of astronaut Nicole Stott, author of the new book Code Blue https://www.sspi.org/cpages/better-satellite-world-this-planets-on-fire about what happens when an alarm goes off on the ISS. The industry is global and so is the philosophy. 

The simple fact is our customers have wide and global footprints and we are the connecting tissue. We work cross-border when science demands and when a crisis erupts.  

Pandemics and wars are anathema and perhaps our view above the earth allows us to instinctively know it. On Earth satellites anchor the communications infrastructure and hence the economies of the world with increasing importance and celebrity. The data on wages for the industry, when compared to the overall economy, testify to this. 

And you don’t need to be an economist to figure it out.

As  GVF Secretary General David Meltzer wrote in Connectivity Business, “These are good times to be an employee in the U.S. space industry and, conversely, space industry employers are having to pay a premium to recruit and retain employees.”

This defies what had transpired for two decades within the rest of the labor force, where despite the fact that American employers added jobs for 101 continuous months through the Summer of 2018 real average wages (wages after accounting for inflation) had the same purchasing power they did 40 years before!¹  The wages mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers. 

This was seen clearly in The Space Foundation’s 2022 Report. Pay for employees in the private space sector of this industry average US$ 125,214.  Again, as if you need reminding, I’m not an economist but that is more than double the US$ 62,247 average annual salary of U.S. private-sector jobs and 27.3% more than the average salary of US$ 98,340 for STEM occupations.

The desirability and growth in the space and satellite industry is remarkable.  Also remarkable is the growth of satellite’s positive impact on humanitarian aid. However global pandemic, political failures (which is what a war is by definition) and the havoc of climate change have presented a global footprint and a basketful of Nasty.

The supply chain issue is a nasty one we did not anticipate or consider. Especially the type of supply chain that most concerns leaders in the industry: people. 

In a revealing Podcast about the supply chain challenges to humanitarian relief providers who rely on the satellite industry, Meltzer and Ultisat CEO David Myers readily agreed on my “The Better Satellite World” podcast that the real supply chain issue in the satellite industry is the inability to find and onboard qualified employees to accommodate the rate at which the industry is growing and the clip at which aid workers are desperately needed. https://www.sspi.org/cpages/untangling-the-supply-chain-podcast 

The good news is that while there are more disasters the data reveals that fewer and fewer people are being killed by them.  Both gentlemen agreed that an investment in disaster preparedness and satellite solutions has been at the root of this “success.” 

In the non-profit world labor remains an ongoing challenge. The people to provide humanitarian aid is in short supply. It is the same with the burgeoning numbers of people required to fill jobs in the industry. Untangling that supply chain is an area of executive management that will require us to let people know that if they want to “do well by doing good,” the job is theirs.

For more information about the new Space Business Qualified online course offered for new and existing employees visit: www.SpaceBQ.org and https://youtu.be/PmNTc3ubjcw

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Notes
¹Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/  

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Lou Zacharilla is the Director of Innovation and  Development of the Space and Satellite Professionals International (SSPI).  He can be reached at: LZacharilla@sspi.org