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Scientific and technical employment, 1990-2005

Monthly Labor Review - February 1, 1992

Alternative employment projections of scientists, engineers, and technicians indicate growth ranging widely from 9 percent to 59 percent over the 1990-2005 period

Our Nation's economic progress and general well-being depend in considerable measure on the work of scientists, engineers, and technicians. These men and women contribute to the development of new products, improvements in productivity, enhanced defense capabilities, environmental protection, and advances in communications and health care. Because of the importance of scientific and technical workers, information about the current and future labor market for scientists and technicians has great significance. The National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resources Studies, charged with the responsibility for monitoring the adequacy of the supply of scientific and technical workers in meeting the Nation's needs, supported a Bureau of Labor Statistics study of employment prospects for these workers. This article summarizes the results of that study.

The BLS study focused on the development of alternative employment projections for scientists, engineers, and technicians' covering the period 1990-2005. The study also analyzed alternative future supply and demand scenarios for these workers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics develops alternative projections of the labor force, economic growth, industry output and employment, and occupational employment every other year.

The most current projections, covering 19902005, were published in the November 1991 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. Each set of projections consists of a low, moderate, and high growth alternative, developed through a series of models that relate economic theory to economic behavior.[2] While these alternative projections indicate a wide range of employment growth in most occupations, including the scientific and technical occupations, the range of growth for each is determined primarily by variations in the growth of the labor force and in the factors affecting aggregate economic variables, such as the gross national product (GNP), exports and imports, and national defense.

For any single occupation or occupational group, however, the Bureau's regular alternative projections program is not designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of the full range of possible employment alternatives. Variations in the major assumptions and associated aggregate economic variables cannot cover all the conditions that could affect employment in each of the 500 occupations included in the program. Thus, the potential range of projected employment for any specific occupation is much wider than that shown in the alternatives regularly prepared by BLS. Consequently, in developing the high and low alternatives for scientists, engineers, and technicians discussed in this article, the Bureau's projection methodology was modified so that the procedures could account for economic and other factors most likely to have a significant impact on employment in scientific and technical occupations.

Highlights of the projections

The alternatives prepared by BLS with the support of the National Science Foundation indicate a wide potential range of employment growth in scientific and technical occupations. For scientists, engineers, and technicians as a group, growth over the 1990-2005 period is projected to range from 9 percent to 59 percent. Among the individual scientific and technical occupations, engineers have the widest projected range of employment, from a decline of 2 percent in the low alternative to an increase of 54 percent in the high alternative. In each alternative, the fastest growth among the groups of scientific and technical occupations is for computer, mathematical, and operations research analysts, ranging from an increase of 46 percent in the low alternative to an increase of 97 percent in the high alternative. Social scientists show the least variation in growth among the alternatives.

Over the 1990-2005 period, the college-aged population is expected to grow more slowly than during the 1970's and 1980's, raising concerns about the adequacy of the future supply of natural scientists, mathematical and computer scientists, and engineers. Alternative projections of college degrees in these fields (the primary source of supply) were developed based on assumptions that 4 percent, 5 percent, and 6 percent of the 22-year-old population would be awarded bachelor's degrees in these fields. The relationship of degrees awarded to job openings in the 1984-90 period was then compared with data from the alternative employment and degree projections.

In general, the analysis presented here indicates that supply and demand in the 1990-2005 period are very likely to approximate supply and demand in the 1984-90 period. Relationships in the projected high employment-high supply, moderate employment-moderate supply, and low employment-low supply scenarios are similar to employment-supply relationships that existed in the mid- to late 1980's. However, the analysis shows that supply-demand imbalances are possible under each of the demand alternatives if the choices of college students to study science and engineering do not reflect labor market conditions-that is, if high demand and low supply or low demand and high supply should prevail. Nonetheless, past experience shows that supply tends to react to demand, although often with a time lag in between.

Analytical procedure

Employment in most occupations is greatly affected by the industries in which it is concentrated. Therefore, the first step in the analysis was to identify the industries in which scientific and technical workers are concentrated and in which they represent a large share of all workers. From this assessment, it was found that 50 industries' employed about 65 percent of all scientists, engineers, and technicians in 1990. Furthermore, more than two-thirds of these workers were employed in I 0 industries, namely, computer and office equipment manufacturing, electronic components and accessories manufacturing, aircraft and parts manufacturing, search and navigation equipment manufacturing, computer and data-processing services, public and private education, engineering and architectural services, the Federal Government, State governments, and local governments. In addition, the share of employment accounted for by scientific and technical workers in nearly all of these industries was at least twice as great as their share of employment in the economy as a whole. With this information, the assumptions used in developing the alternatives could focus on economic variables that have a significant impact on employment in industries with a high concentration of scientists, engineers, and technicians.

Employment in an occupation also is affected by its utilization within industries, as measured by the proportion of employment accounted for by the occupation. Thus, another step in establishing the analytical procedures used was to identify factors that affect the future proportion of scientific and technical workers within industries. Fortunately, these factors had already been identified in ongoing BLS research on occupations and were used in developing the projected industry-occupation matrix' for the regular BLS projections. However, all of the regular BLS alternatives-low, moderate, and high-used the same projected occupational staffing patterns. Hence, in developing the high and low alternatives for scientific, engineering, and technical occupations, the staffing patterns were modified from the moderate or baseline alternative to account for variations in utilization that would reflect factors that changed the overall demand for workers in each industry. In general, the high alternative had greater utilization and the low alternative lower utilization of workers in scientific and technical occupations than did the moderate alternative developed by BLS.

Developing the alternative scenarios The moderate growth alternative developed as part of the regular BLS projections program was established as the baseline projection for the special alternatives. In addition, the macroassumptions used in the regular high growth and low growth BLS alternatives were used, with only slight modification to assure consistency with the specific assumptions posited to affect employment in the industries in which scientific and technical personnel are concentrated. Thus, factors such as the overall unemployment rate, productivity growth, prices, labor force growth, and so on in the regular projection alternatives were used in the special alternatives. In addition, the general pattern of final demand in the regular high and low alternatives was used as the starting point for developing the high and low alternatives for scientific, engineering, and technical occupations.

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