The Demand for Engineers---Projections Through 1987

Engineering manpower constitutes an important national resource where demand and supply must be in reasonable balance to assure continued economic growth. The paper establishes a demand analysis to predict the need for engineers in 15 industry groups through 1987, subject to various economic scenarios. It is shown that for total engineering employment in any industry segment the constant dollar gross national product fraction per engineer is only a slowly varying function of time. A least-square fit of this ratio versus time is shown to be an adequate predictor of employment and can be used for extrapolation with confidence. A parallel analysis is also developed for engineers employed in research and development. It is shown that, in general, the need for new engineers due to economic growth is smaller than the need to make up for attrition due to death, retirement, promotions out of engineering and voluntary leaving of the profession. The high mobility rate of engineers out of the profession is significant and its importance has not previously been documented. The paper concludes with a preliminary discussion of the balance between supply and demand. Even with a healthy economic growth the nation is likely to produce a small excess of engineering graduates over the near future. However, there will be a shortage of engineers holding advanced degrees for entry into research and development, even if R&D sees only a moderate growth. Better industry-university cooperation is called for to encourage engineers to undertake advanced degrees, to assess actual future needs and to advise students to select appropriate engineering disciplines.