Red-Hot Auto Job Market Leaves Engineers Stuck on Factory Floors

Isidro Arellano thought he’d found a good thing when recruiters showed up at Mexico’s Universidad Tecnológica de Torreón looking for engineers interested in career-enhancing jobs in the auto industry in the US South.

What the 26-year-old said he got instead was a job lugging steering columns and installing bumpers, logging 60-hour-plus weeks at a Kia assembly line in West Point, Georgia.

“I expected to work in an office, like I was used to in Mexico,” Arellano said from Mexico, where he returned last year after being fired, he said, for complaining about what he describes as a bait-and-switch. “I expected to attend meetings with ...