Chapter 3: Science & Engineering Indicators 93
Engineering Employment in the '90s
The engineering specialties most adversely affected by the slow economy and lower defense budgets are electrical and electronic, industrial, and aerospace. Job losses among these categories amounted to an estimated 41,000, 25,000, and 23,000, respectively, between 1987 and 1992. (See appendix
table 3-7.) Of these three, aerospace registered the highest percentage loss of jobs, 22 percent, during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Not surprisingly, there has been a drastic decline in job offers to recent aerospace engineering
graduates.(Click here for footnote 41.)
Other engineering specialties appear relatively more immune to the recession and defense cutbacks:
- Environmental engineers: Enactment of tougher environmental laws and regulations has increased the demand for engineers with expertise in toxic waste disposal, hazardous material handling, and emissions control. They are also serving as
consultants, advising companies on how to minimize the cost of compliance with environmental laws and regulations.
- Civil engineers: The need for increased investment in public works and the repair/rebuilding of the aging infrastructure, e.g., subway systems, bridges, and buildings, in many U.S. cities appears to have boosted demand for civil engineers.
- Chemical and petroleum engineers: Demand for these engineers has led that for all other engineering specialties for the past several years. The scarcity of graduates in these two specialties is reflected in their starting salaries which
are higher than those received by any other recent graduates (and which also showed the largest percentage gains between 1988 and 1993). The petroleum refining industry, one of the leading employers of these two types of engineers, has been less
affected by the recession than most other industries.
- Systems and software engineers: Their services are in great demand, not only in software companies, but also in hardware firms where emphasis on state-of-the-art technology is increasingly shifting from hardware to software (Engineering Manpower Commission 1992b). In addition, because of the application of computer technology across all sectors of the economy, demand for software engineers shows no sign of slowing.
Several recent trends in engineering employment should be noted:
- Demand for engineers has infiltrated almost every industry, from manufacturing to the service sector. Their computer, quantitative, and problem-solving skills provide entry to various industries, including consulting and other types of service
sector firms.(Click here for footnote 42.)
- The increasing use of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems and other automation tools has brought about major improvements in productivity across all sectors of the economy. These technological advances have
also resulted in improved productivity in the engineering profession itself, because the amount of (engineering) labor needed to perform certain tasks has been falling. For example, no one doubts that rebuilding the aging infrastructure will sustain
strong demand for civil engineers throughout the 1990s. But this demand could be partially offset by increased use of CAD/CAM systems (Engineering Manpower Commission 1991a). In addition, the increasing use of
automation allows technicians and other paraprofessionals to be more easily substituted for engineers.
Footnote 41:
For example, recent CalTech engineering graduates did not receive a single job offer from any of the major aerospace companies in Southern California (Engineering Manpower Commission 1992b).
Footnote 42:
At least one quarter of the 1,600 new graduates hired in 1992 by Anderson Consulting, the information systems consulting arm of the Arthur Anderson accounting firm, majored in engineering. See Engineering Manpower Commission
(1991c).
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