A Depressing Saga About Jobs

The United States suffered a net loss of 12 factories and 2,400 manufacturing jobs per day during the first 10 years of the 21st century. This is a net loss of 44,000 factories. (1) These statistics are only the tip of the iceberg. Here are some data for engineers. Back in the 80s and 90s, the unemployment rate among electrical engineers (EEs) and computer scientists (CSs) was, by and large below 2%, but it has gone up drastically since then. It soared to 8.6% in the second quarter of 2009 for EEs and to 5.7% for CSs. At that time the government counted 29,000 EEs out of work. Although these numbers are below the average unemployment rate in the US, they are extremely alarming because we are talking about a profession that drives technological progress. In the third quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate for mechanical engineers was 9.5% reports Eugene Veklerov. (2)