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

Health 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 with 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.

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 23, 2007).