<p>So I was going through the latest BLS stats for May 2010 and it showed engineering unemployment at 7% compared to computers/mathematical at 5%, business/Financial at 4.5%, and health care at 2%. </p>
<p>I had been led to believe that engineering was the second safest field besides health care and that there is a shortage of engineers. So why the discrepancy between my perception and reality? Is it impossible to find a job as an engineer right now?</p>
<p>Civil engineers will have some problems fiding jobs but only until the economy is in a slump. After that civil engineering will grow alot. All other engineering fields are growing quickly. Except for chemical engineering. Discrepency is probably there because most engineers are civil
engineers who are having trouble these days. CE is the only engineering discipline that is shrinking in size. I think shrinkage is almost -5.0% for the next decade from what I can remember on BLS.</p>
<p>Engineering is a very safe career path for the future. Except civil
for the short term and chemical for the long term.</p>
<p>I thought Chemical Engineering was a pretty diverse degree? So why is its growth going to slow down in the long run?</p>
<p>“Chemical engineers are expected to have an employment decline of 2 percent over the projections decade. Overall employment in the chemical manufacturing industry is expected to continue to decline, although chemical companies will continue to employ chemical engineers to research and develop new chemicals and more efficient processes to increase output of existing chemicals.”</p>
<p>BLS [url=<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm]Engineers[/url”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm]Engineers[/url</a>]</p>
<p>I am not sure why chemical engineering is a declining field. Ask the government.</p>
<p>So the civil engineers are distorting the unemployment rate for overall engineers pretty bad then? Makes sense. The BLS OOH reports most of the engineering fields to have very slow growth in the next decade. Is this strictly due to outsourcing or what?</p>
<p>dont mean to hijack the thread, just wondering how easy it would be to find a job as an EE in a city like cleveland (where i live). or i wouldnt mind moving to miami/nyc or even somewhere in europe</p>
<p>I was on Ga Techs website looking at surveys from last year and they had some interesting stats. Pretty much all of the engineering fields took a hit, civil more than most. The worst one of all, EE. Don’t know why but EE had the largest drop in job offers upon graduation. Even more odd to me anyway is that their management degree holders reported an increase in job offers. I know it’s just one school and doesn’t mean anything across the board. I just thought it was interesting. But with the economy in the tank, I would think there will be strange fluctuations with these numbers for a while.</p>
<p>^Do you mind linking us?</p>
<p>Sarah, I was just looking at Berkeley’s career center survey’s and it is incredible the dramatic rise in unemployment for their engineering graduates from 2007 to 2009. Pretty much all the engineering disciplines were in the 7-13% graduate unemployment rate in 2007, compared to 2009 when most disciplines had a graduate unemployment rate of 30-50%. Truly amazing. Here’s some links from my research:</p>
<p>[Georgia</a> Institute of Technology :: Salary Reports](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page)</p>
<p>[2010</a> Career & Salary Survey (Spring)](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page)</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm</a></p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MatSci.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MatSci.stm</a></p>
<p>not good, but better than most other careers</p>
<p>If only colleges will take this into consideration when offering aid to engineering majors.</p>
<p>I think some schools my son applied to purposely lowballed engineering majors in the merit department because they figured the kids would come out making six figures and would be able to pay back over 100 grand in college debt in no time.</p>
<p>Or they offered coop opportunities that they figured would fill the gap, with no mind that the student was already well into the hole before those coops came around.</p>
<p>Along that line, I wonder if there are as many coops, especially paying ones, available nowadays, now that employment of engineers has dropped.</p>
<p>Could go either way. They’re looking for cheap labor to do things that don’t require a PE, or they’re making the PEs take on more duties that they might have normally farmed out to a 20 buck an hour intern.</p>
<p>Hoping that in the next four years, this trend will have shifted and jobs will be availabe for engineers again.</p>
<p>BTW, we did ask about job prospects for 2010 graduates at a well known engineering school this spring, and were told that more students were heading to grad school than usual, as job prospects were down, so they took the opportunity to go for their master’s.</p>
<p>Repo men are recession proof but face difficulties when times are a-booming. Man, what a dichotomy. :(</p>
<p>@Montegut:</p>
<p>Industry is always crying about a “lack” of well-trained STEM professionals and the need for more H-1B visas. You’d think engineers would be virtually unemployed and making very high salaries but then we observe contradicting situations. Perhaps I’m beingcynical, but it seems the purpose is to drive engineering salaries down and have a pool of cheap technical labor.</p>
<p>Important note: These numbers may be skewed by the fact that students who are engaged in employment will have less time to answer a survey from their alma mater. </p>
<p>So here’s the number of survey respondents in selected majors from the university of cal at berkeley- one of the top schools in the nation- who had gained employment at the time of the survey:</p>
<p>Engineering-----</p>
<p>Materials Science: 10%
Mechanical: 27%
Civil: 19%
Biological: 40%
Chemical: 37%
EE & Computer: 52%
Industrial: 40%</p>
<p>Other Majors-----</p>
<p>Business: 82%
Economics: 58%
Computer Science: 55%
Political Science: 35%
Statistics: 27%
Mathematics: 16%
Sociology: 26%</p>
<p>For comparison here is some employment numbers for 2007 undergrads:</p>
<p>Engineering-----</p>
<p>Materials Science: 48%
Mechanical: 47%
Civil: 35%
Biological: 60%
Chemical: 54%
EE & Computer: 57%
Industrial: 73%</p>
<p>Other Majors-----</p>
<p>Business: 89%
Economics: 70%
Computer Science: 83%
Political Science: 47%
Statistics: 50%
Mathematics: 51%
Sociology: 38%</p>
<p>I am maddened by those numbers…</p>
<p>Inmotion,
EE & Computer: 52% compared to 57% in 2007, it seems like the EE/computer is a safe area? I can understand the decline of computer science. Definitely.
Economic is also pretty good.
Statistics and mathematics probably suffer along with the economic decline.</p>
<p>And business. lol still very high!</p>
<p>Yes those numbers are very unsettling, since I’m interested in materials science and engineering. 10% employment from Cal grads? That’s just not good. :(</p>
<p>Next thing you know, we’ll be hearing that nursing students can’t even find a job.</p>
<p>This is why we’re glad son is taking the free ride, rather than the 30K/year debt.</p>
<p>No guarantees there’s going to be a job when you get out, but I’m sure that won’t stop the loan guy from looking for his money.</p>
<p>Those percentages do not include students attending grad school or embarking on other endeavors. I believe the % of students seeking employment is a far more telling number of what to expect in this job market as a recent college grad.
From the same site he got his numbers from:</p>
<p>UCB % of respondents who are seeking employment in engineering fields</p>
<p>Electrical: 20%<br>
Civil: 48%<br>
Mechanical: 37%
Bioengineering: 25%
Industrial: 38%
*Materials: 50% *based on only 21 respondents</p>
<p>Want to make sure I understand the numbers.</p>
<p>Does this mean that, for example, 37 percent of those graduating with a BS in mech eng are seeking jobs, or that they have obtained jobs?</p>
<p>Thank you for any clarification.</p>
<p>Sorry for the confusion, the number represents the % graduates who are seeking jobs (aka–unemployed). </p>
<p>So for mechanical engineering: 27% are employed, 37% are seeking employment and the rest are either graduate school or embarking on other endeavors.</p>