What’s the Job Outlook for Engineering Students in the U.S.?

If you are considering enrolling in an online masters in engineering program, it’s only natural to wonder and ask questions about the future job prospects in this field. If you are putting the time, effort, and money into earning your online master of engineering, you want to know you’ll be able to find a job in your field relatively quickly.

Just like with most careers, it seems as though the future job outlook has both positives going for it and a few negatives. Let’s examine it further.

A Number of Different Paths

To throw a blanket statement over the field of engineering is really quite difficult, and this is because there are more than 40 different types of engineering paths and degrees out there. It’s impossible to say that “the field of engineering” is on an upswing or downswing because there are just so many different industries and applications where engineers are found. Typically, the main branches are electrical, civil, chemical, mechanical, geotechnical, and management to name a few.

What Do the Stats Say?

Of course, it’s important to look to the stats in order to uncover trends in the industry. By doing this one can find that there are about 1.6 million engineering jobs in the country as of 2014. In general, it seems that civil engineering is the field with the largest amount of jobs.

Now here’s another stat that is equally as important. During the early 2000s there was a very obvious lull in the amount of students enrolling in engineering programs. It didn’t necessarily decrease, but it didn’t increase either. Around the year 2007, enrolment took a sharp jump upwards and suddenly students were taking part in the program again.

Here’s another important trend. Both petroleum and industrial engineering fields have a large number of employees who are aging and nearing retirement. This means if you look at the numbers right now there may not be a lot of job openings, but when you consider how much of the work force will retire soon, suddenly there is a very different picture revealed.

If you are looking for a field that shows growth potential, it’s hard to beat the potential that the petroleum and industrial fields both offer new graduates in the coming years.

Another intriguing path could be naval and marine engineers. This work force is aging as well, with many coming up to retirement. There aren’t many jobs in these fields, but with so many set to be vacated, it could provide you with the opportunity you’re looking for.

Always in Need

The thing with engineers is that as technology progresses the field will need more workers who have been trained in current technology and practices. There will always be a need for engineers, it’s just a matter of which field is currently on the upswing. Engineering can also provide you with the opportunity to travel to other countries and seek employment there if you’re looking for something different.

1 comment

Bauc144 December 16, 2023 at 4:33 pm

… [Trackback]

[…] Here you will find 95874 more Info to that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/whats-job-outlook-engineering-students-u-s/ […]

Leave a Comment