Hi Fady!

Unfortunately, companies are constantly under budget restrictions, and sometimes this leads to an entire department to go through a hiring freeze or a travel freeze. Although new engineering projects start in R&D and core team leaders need employees to take on the workload, the managers of the R&D department do not allow them to hire new employees because of the budget. Currently, the company that I work for is in a hiring freeze and it’s unfortunate to see that critical projects that need new engineers are not able to even interview a new employee, and thus, the engineers who are on the project are asked to take on a heavier workload and meet specific deadlines. Just as Luisa said, my company also hires many contractors to meet the needs of the projects. These contractors are only allowed to stay in the company for a maximum of 15 months, and once it is over, managers are allowed to bring in new contractors. It’s a cycle, and an unfortunate one indeed because training has to constantly occur, and every new contractor has to become familiar with the product itself. However, at the end of the day, projects are becoming successful with the help of these adequate resources, while maintaining budget requirements of the R&D department. It’s a win-win.