Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke caused a bit of a stir last month when he said that from a “technical perspective,” the recession is “very likely” over at this point. From a less technical perspective, he added that it could be months before unemployment rates dropped significantly.
In fact, the Consumer Electronics Association’s U.S. Economic Forecast is projecting the unemployment rate for the country at 9.9% in 2010 and expects it to improve to only 9.2% in 2011. That’s just about where it is now for much of the country, though 14 states are reporting an unemployment rate of more than 10%.
The unemployment rate for U.S. EEs hit a record high in the second quarter, but has eased somewhat in the third period, according to data very recently released by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The jobless rate for EEs dropped from 8.6% in the second quarter to 7.3% in the third. Quarter to quarter, the EE workforce grew by 26,000. The unemployment rate for computer professionals went from 5.4% to 3.6%. Software engineers showed a slight decline (4.7% versus 5.0%), while computer scientists and systems analysts experienced an increase (7.3% versus 6.4%).
“These mixed data suggest that the worst may be passing, but we are still a long way from the levels of engineering unemployment we would expect to see in a strong economy,” says IEEE-USA president Gordon Day.
“We are also encouraged that announcements of layoffs in the high-tech sector appear to have subsided, after peaking early in the year. A clear turnaround in engineering unemployment would be a very positive sign for the general workforce, since engineers create new jobs in many categories,” Day says.
ANY GOOD NEWS?
Good news is hard to come by. The global staffing firm Robert Half International and CareerBuilder, the online career site, recently released a joint study suggesting that more than half of the employers it polled plan to hire full-time employees over the next 12 months and that technology was one of the few areas in which they expect to add jobs.
But the 2009 Electronic Design Salary Survey reveals a bleak picture with employment declining for working engineers, while the salaries of those still working have decreased. And it’s pretty much downhill from there.
“Demand for EEs is down across the board,” says Michael J. Buryk, business development manager for recruitment advertising for IEEE Media. “The IEEE Job Site is down over 50% since last year, as are most other online recruitment sites that I know about.”
Silicon Valley has been particularly hard hit since 2001. According to BLS data, the six-county region lost more than 85,000 high-tech jobs between 2001 and 2008, a decline of 17%. Some industry sectors have continued to do well in the region, including aerospace and certain categories of scientific research, both of which recorded strong job growth (see the figure).
However, the more traditional sectors suffered over the study period. The top four high-tech industries in terms of employment in Silicon Valley in 2001—computer system design, semiconductor manufacturing, Internet/telecommunications, and computer equipment manufacturing—lost more than 70,000 jobs by 2008.
Although the six counties (Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa) are identified as part of the Silicon Valley high-tech corridor, more than half of all hightech jobs were located in Santa Clara County.
All high-tech sectors were well represented in the BLS data, with employment ranging from 99,224 jobs in the computer system design sector down to 11,583 jobs in communications manufacturing in 2008. Yet employment in two of these sectors, computer equipment and semiconductor manufacturing, increased nationally during the same period.
Of the Top 25 Route 128 employers listed by Boston.com, a Boston-based news service, only three are in electronics. These three companies recently listed a total of only 64 openings, which may not include positions for technical professionals. Gary Wright of Wright Associates, a recruitment service that covers Greater New England, says engineers are still in demand in defense-related positions in his area, especially if you have a security clearance.
“There are also openings for high-level software talent, mostly by financial services and investment management companies,” says Wright. “People who have strong, current technical skills are still in demand. Companies that are hiring are looking for people with specific skill sets.”
Employment in Oregon’s computer and electronic industry is down by 6000 workers from 2007 to 34,600, according to the state labor department. To try to pick up the slack, Oregon, with the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country, has been working hard to lure “green,” or clean-tech, companies to the state, mostly in the form of tax credits.