Career Path Forecast
 According
to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
overall engineering employment is expected to grow by 11 percent over
the 2006-16 decade, about as fast as the average for all occupations.
Engineers have traditionally been concentrated in slower growing or
declining manufacturing industries, in which they will continue to be
needed to design, build, test, and improve manufactured products.
However, increasing employment of engineers in faster growing service
industries should generate most of the employment growth. Job outlook
varies by engineering specialty, as discussed later.
Competitive pressures
and advancing technology will force companies to improve and update
product designs and to optimize their manufacturing processes. Employers
will rely on engineers to increase productivity and expand output of
goods and services. New technologies continue to improve the design
process, enabling engineers to produce and analyze various product
designs much more rapidly than in the past. Unlike in some other
occupations, however, technological advances are not expected to
substantially limit employment opportunities in engineering because
engineers will continue to develop new products and processes that
increase productivity.
 Offshoring
of engineering work will likely dampen domestic employment growth to
some degree. There are many well-trained, often English-speaking
engineers available around the world willing to work at much lower
salaries than U.S. engineers. The rise of the Internet has made it
relatively easy for part of the engineering work previously done by
engineers in this country to be done by engineers in other countries, a
factor that will tend to hold down employment growth. Even so, there
will always be a need for onsite engineers to interact with other
employees and clients.
 Overall job
opportunities in engineering are expected to be good because the number
of engineering graduates should be in rough balance with the number of
job openings between 2006 and 2016. In addition to openings from job
growth, many openings will be created by the need to replace current
engineers who retire; transfer to management, sales, or other
occupations; or leave engineering for other reasons.
Many engineers work on
long-term research and development projects or in other activities that
continue even during economic slowdowns. In industries such as
electronics and aerospace, however, large cutbacks in defense
expenditures and in government funding for research and development have
resulted in significant layoffs of engineers in the past. The trend
toward contracting for engineering work with engineering services firms,
both domestic and foreign, has also made engineers more vulnerable to
layoffs during periods of lower demand.
 It
is important for engineers, as it is for workers in other technical and
scientific occupations, to continue their education throughout their
careers because much of their value to their employer depends on their
knowledge of the latest technology. Engineers in high-technology areas,
such as biotechnology or information technology, may find that technical
knowledge becomes outdated rapidly. By keeping current in their field,
engineers are able to deliver the best solutions and greatest value to
their employers. Engineers who have not kept current in their field may
find themselves at a disadvantage when seeking promotions or during
layoffs.
Note: Some resources in this section are provided by the US Department
of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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