Engineering careers are far and few between in the United States. The Labor Department in the country said that only 38,000 jobs across all industries were added in the last month which would be the lowest growth numbers in the last five and a half years.
The industries that particularly struggled to employ any new employees were engineering fields. Construction, manufacturing, oil and gas industries saw the biggest losses in May. Capital Economics Chief economist, Paul Ashworth said: "The weakness in May's payrolls was widespread. Manufacturing lost 10,000 jobs, construction shed 15,000 jobs and temporary help fell by 21,000. A June rate hike from the Fed is now very unlikely."
"The bad news with this jobs report is that if the U.S. slows, that means Dallas will slow, which has really been the anchor for growth. The parts of Texas that have been growing the fastest and doing well despite the energy bust will be impacted by any slowing of the national economy," said Pia Orrenius, an economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, talking to the Houston Chronicle.
The data gathered suggests that 207,000 jobs have been lost in America since September 2014. Mining and logging industries recently contributed 10,000 losses to that number.
However, TechServe Alliance, a company that offers research into the IT & Engineering Staffing and Solutions industry have said that engineering employment improved across the board by 0.1 percent in April. The researchers pointed out that from April 2015 to April 2016 engineering employment in the United States actually did increase by 0.8 percent, but adding only 21,100 engineering jobs.
"IT employment continued its steady but unremarkable growth in April. On the engineering side, we saw the return of modest growth after ticking down the prior month. While there remains an air of uncertainty, we continue to see hiring in many technical skills sets continue at a solid pace. Employers and the employment market are not monolithic. While we are seeing weak demand in some industries, other industries such as management and technical consulting are showing remarkable strength," said Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance.
