[Radio Wrangler]

The electronics jobs market is getting a bit desperate for people at the moment. I'm getting more than a dozen cold contacts per week. Not bad at 66 years old (though my mental age is a lot younger!). They're mostly from recruitment firms desperate for cannon fodder that fits some spec they've been given, but also from large firms contacting me directly. There may be lots more going on than you've noticed.

It sounds like you are strongly enamoured with the nature of your job, just not with the company. Travel would be needed to somewhere in the same field, right. But you aren't tied to that field. Your skills are applicable in other areas and if you have the dedication and skills to take things home to reverse engineer them in your own time, you could be just the sort of person some firm out ther would be appreciative of.

These sorts of bullying firms act to destroy people's confidence in themselves. It makes the job of bullying so much easier.

The big shrinkage of electronics with all the consumer stuff manufacturing having gone elsewhere has happened, it is complete. There is some coming back as problems are discovered in operating at such distance (culturally as well as geographically) and there are niche products that don't fit well with Chinese manufacturing ... too little turnover, too much skilled manual input, too specialised.

While the exodus was on, skilled electronics engineers were being dumped in hordes. Jobs were short.

Universities have now closed many courses, fewer young engineers are being trained. The pendulum has swung the other way and there is a shortage. Recruitment activity has surged in the past couple of years and the small number of students prepared to take on a notoriously difficult subject aren't enough to go round.

Keep your head down until the current pandemic is clear, and then start looking. Be careful to not do anything which could be used against you.

Find a job that is equally attractive, working for people you like.

The current lot are exploiting your reluctance to move. If you seem too settled, you get taken for granted and get treated like crap. I've been in that fix. I was too anchored right up until a change in company direction resulted in all the hardware people being made redundant. It was fun afterwards hearing all the difficulties they ran into unable to do the things I did for them. You only get appreciated after you've gone and by then it's too late.
"Hire the best people, then trust them to want to do a good job" A quote from Dave Packard. A hard nosed businessman and a fine humanitarian. Proof they are not mutually exclusive.

David