The decline of STEM in America
Over the past couple years in America. There seems to be a push for STEM. There are some STEM initiatives that are being pushed in several schools in the United States.
But, how is that really panning out in the real world?
The Stats
There are many fields of engineering to choose from. Lets see what the job outlook will be in the next 7 years.
These data points are from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (updated 2015). Here is the job growth for the following engineering jobs.
- Biomedical Engineers — 23% up
- Industrial Engineers — 1% up
- Chemical Engineers — 2% up
- Civil Engineers — 8% up
- Mechanical Engineers — 5% up
- Aerospace Engineers — 2% DOWN!
- Software Engineer — 17% up
The average job growth percentage is about 5%. As you can see several engineering professions fall below this growth rate.
There are ones with large growth rates such as Software Engineers and Biomedical Engineers. However, these are far and few between.
What does this mean?
The demand for engineering jobs will stay relatively the same over the next couple of years. For a country that is pushing these initiatives for more engineers, why is this happening?
It may be that the importance of engineering has been overshadowed.
The real question is how does America to other countries?
Rankings in Countries
We often like saying that the United States as the best. Yes, it may be the best at certain things, but this is not the case with engineering. Here is the list of top 10 engineering countries.
1 — Denmark
2 — Switzerland
3 — Belgium
4 — United States
5 — Sweden
6 — The Netherlands
7 — Finland
8 — Israel
9 — Germany
10 — France
Of this list, the United States is fourth. Not bad. Although, this is definitely not the best.
Many of the top engineering countries are actually in Europe.
Conclusion
This is by no means a comprehensive analysis of STEM in America. This is just looking at the job market and where we stand.
We hope that this helped open your eyes a little for what the future may be in engineering.
We hoped that you enjoyed this article. If so, please be sure to like, follow, and share. Also please be sure to check out Hammercircuit.
Michael Navazhylau is a Software Engineer in St.Louis who loves building cool and useful software. He is also the co-founder of Hammercircuit. You can check out his website at Mechasparrow.

