In general, the decline in engineering employment in manufacturing in the early 1990s was across the board. Four of the five largest engineering specialties, and the five manufacturing industries employing the largest numbers of engineers, had reductions. (See figures 3-1 and 3-2, appendix table 3-1 and "Engineering Employment in the '90s.")

Among the five largest engineering specialties, the largest percentage cutback was in aeronautical/astronautical engineering. In this specialty, the total number of jobs fell 26 percent between 1989 and 1992. The entire loss appears to have occurred in the transportation equipment industry, which is the largest employer of aeronautical/astronautical engineers. Many of these engineers were working for aircraft and missiles companies and were assigned to defense-related projects that are being curtailed or eliminated. (See "The Impact of Defense Downsizing on Technical Employment.")

Job losses in industrial engineering numbered 13,000 between 1989 and 1992, the largest absolute decline of any engineering specialty. The transportation equipment industry, the largest employer of industrial engineers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, accounted for 70 percent of the decrease in industrial engineering jobs in manufacturing.

Ten thousand electrical/electronics engineering jobs were lost between 1989 and 1992. The largest cutbacks were--again--in the transportation equipment industry, and also in the electrical equipment industry. These losses amounted to 6,000 and 5,000 jobs, respectively. There was, however, a small increase in electrical/electronics engineers in the machinery industry.

There were fewer mechanical engineering jobs in 1992 than 3 years earlier. Reductions amounting to 3,000 jobs in the machinery industry and 2,000 in the electrical equipment industry were only partially offset by increases in the transportation equipment and instruments industries.

Of the five largest engineering specialties, only chemical engineering showed a gain for the 1989-92 period. Employment in this field had been declining during the mid- and late 1980s, but a turnaround in the early 1990s increased the total number of jobs in this field by 9 percent between 1989 and 1992.

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