More bad news for US car designers: coming shortly after the recent announcement that Volvo and Chrysler are shedding their California design studios, the Tri-Cities Business Review observes more American design jobs leaving Detroit for places like Germany, China and the UK.

"What we're seeing is the individuals that are remaining--our industry has been pretty much gutted--[are] becoming essentially supervisors or managers," design executive Matthew Pyzik said. Pyzik, president of Design Intent Engineering of Farmington Hills, said those left tend to be a highly skilled but small cadre who oversee lower-cost designers in shops around the world. He's off-shored auto design work too, he said, to keep costs down for his automaker customers--while striving to diversify his company into other industrial products.

Displaced or demoralized auto designers, meanwhile, are taking their skills out of Michigan, Pyzik said, often landing jobs with other transportation industries.

Read the full story here.