Trends in U.S. Knowledge Workers

This is another grab bag post, where I park interesting numbers for further exploration at a later date.

• In the last 20 years of the twentieth century, the U.S. college-age population declined by more than 21%, from 21.6 million in 1980 to 17.0 million in 2000. The college-age population decline reversed itself in 2001, and will increase to 19.3 million by 2010 (a 13% increase over the year 2000 figure). Witty comment about how demography is destiny, please.
• The private, for-profit sector is by far the largest employer of science and engineering workers. In 1999, 74% of scientists and engineers with bachelor’s degrees and 62% of those with master’s degrees were employed in private, for-profit companies. So we might see an explanation of why patents grow more quickly than academic publications--at least in some sectors...
• Between 1991 and 2001, the number of jobs in the U.S. increased by less than 15% while science employment increased by more than 93%. Much of this can be attributed to the enormous growth in computer scientists. The number of computer systems analysts and scientists increased by 268%, or 1,135,000 people, during this period. The number of natural scientists increased by almost 33%. Within this category, medical scientists experienced the largest increase: 111%.
• Within engineering, as in the period from 1991–2001, electrical and electronic engineering is projected to have the biggest absolute employment gain, up by 31,000 jobs, or about 11% between 2000 and 2010. Larger relative gains are expected for biomedical, environmental, and computer hardware engineers. Further declines in petroleum engineers, as well as mining and geological engineers, are projected. Employment for all engineering occupations is expected to increase by only 9.4% over this period.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects that the trends evident between 1991 and 2001 will persist. While the economy as a whole is expected to generate 15.2% more jobs over this decade, employment opportunities for scientists (excluding social scientists) and engineers are anticipated to increase by about 44%, amounting to an additional 2.3 million jobs.
• Approximately 88% of the increase in science and engineering jobs will occur in computer-related occupations. Overall employment in these occupations is projected to grow by almost 69% between 2000 and 2010, with more than 1.9 million jobs being added.
• Eight of the ten occupations expected to grow most rapidly between 2000 and 2010 are computer-related. The increasing demand for computer-related occupations reflects the rapid advances in computer technology and the continuing development of new computer applications, including the Internet and intranets.
• Overall, computer specialists, a component of computer and mathematical occupations, are projected to increase by 68.6%, for example. Five computer occupations — computer software applications engineers, computer support specialists, computer systems analysts, computer systems software engineers, and network and computer systems administrators — also are among the occupations with the largest projected numerical job growth. Computer and data processing services is the economy’s fastest-growing industry, and in almost all industries, employment in computer occupations is projected to grow much faster than average.

Well, they might want to rethink their forecasting on petroleum engineers, but there is no indication that anyone expects hypergrowth in the numbers of science and engineering workers.