Chemical engineer, Computer hardware & Electrical engineer, Mechanical engineer

Engineering Employment

In 2004 engineers held 1.4 million jobs. The distribution of employment by engineering specialty is as follows:

Total, all engineers	1,449,000	100%
Civil	237,000	16.4
Mechanical	226,000	15.6
Industrial	177,000	12.2
Electrical	156,000	10.8
Electronics, except computer	143,000	9.9
Computer hardware	77,000	5.3
Aerospace	76,000	5.2
Environmental	49,000	3.4
Chemical	31,000	2.1
Healtd and safety, except mining safety	27,000	1.8
Materials	21,000	1.5
Nuclear	17,000	1.2
Petroleum	16,000	1.1
Biomedical	9,700	0.7
Marine engineers and naval architects	6,800	0.5
Mining and geological, including mining safety	5,200	0.4
Agricultural	3,400	0.2
All other engineers	172,000	11.8

About 555,000 engineering jobs were found in manufacturing industries, and another 378,000 wage and salary jobs were in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector, primarily in architectural, engineering, and related services and in scientific research and development services. Many engineers also worked in the construction and transportation, telecommunications, and utilities industries.

Federal, State, and local governments employed about 194,000 engineers in 2004. About 91,000 of these were in the Federal Government, mainly in the U.S. Departments of Defense, Transportation, Agriculture, Interior, and Energy and in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Most engineers in State and local government agencies worked in highway and public works departments. In 2004, about 41,000 engineers were self-employed, many as consultants.

Engineers are employed in every State, in small and large cities and in rural areas. Some branches of engineering are concentrated in particular industries and geographic areas—for example, petroleum engineering jobs tend to be located in areas witd sizable petroleum deposits, such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alaska, and California. Others, such as civil engineering, are widely dispersed, and engineers in these fields often move from place to place to work on different projects.

Engineers are employed in every major industry. The industries employing the most engineers in each specialty are given in the table below, along witd the percent of occupational employment in the industry.

Table 1. Percent concentration of engineering specialty employment in key industries, 2004

Specialty	Industry	Percent
Aerospace	Aerospace product and parts manufacturing	59.6
Agricultural	State and local government	22.6
Biomedical	Scientific research and development services	18.7
	Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing	15.6
Chemical	Chemical manufacturing	27.8
	Architectural, engineering, and related services	16.3
Civil	Architectural, engineering, and related services	46.0
Computer hardware	Computer and electronic product manufacturing	43.2
	Computer systems design and related services	15.0
Electrical	Architectural, engineering, and related services	19.6
	Navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing	10.8
Electronics, except computer	Telecommunications	17.5
	Federal government	14.4
Environmental	Architectural, engineering, and related services	28.9
	State and local government	19.6
Healtd and safety, except mining safety	State and local government	12.4
Industrial	Machinery manufacturing	7.8
	Motor vehicle parts manufacturing	7.1
Marine engineers and naval architects	Architectural, engineering, and related services	34.5
Materials	Computer and electronic product manufacturing	14.3
Mechanical	Architectural, engineering, and related services	18.1
	Machinery manufacturing	13.4
Mining and geological, including mining safety	Mining	25%.9
Nuclear	Electric power generation, transmission and distribution	36.1
Petroleum	Oil and gas extraction	47.4

Source:

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07 Edition, Engineers, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm (visited November 17, 2006).

Engineering Employment

Total, all engineers

Specialty

Industry

Percent

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