• Reduced defense spending is adversely affecting engineering employment. Recent government projections show that more than two out of five engineering, defense-related, civilian jobs have been or will be lost between 1987 and 1997. Engineers who have spent their entire careers working in the defense industry and have become highly specialized may have difficulty finding civilian sector jobs. (For more information see: The Impact of Defense Downsizing on Technical Employment.)

• Defense downsizing has affected industry's employment of R& D scientists and engineers. The total number of full-time-equivalent R& D scientists and engineers working for industrial firms declined from 730,000 in 1990 to 684,000 in 1992. In the aircraft and missiles industry, the number of federally supported research and development scientists and engineers declined 20 percent in the early 1990s. (For more information see: The Impact of Defense Downsizing on Technical Employment.)

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