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U.S. EE Unemployment Moves Upward As Thousands of Non-U.S. Workers Continue to Flood the Job Market

AUSTIN, TEXAS (14 October 2003) — Although the unemployment rate for all workers fell slightly in the third quarter, the rate moved in the opposite direction for U.S. electrical and electronics engineers (EEs), according to data compiled by the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The jobless rate for EEs rose from 6.4 percent in the second quarter to 6.7 percent in the third, while the rate for all workers fell from 5.6 percent to 5.5 percent. At the same time, the number of employed EEs fell by 37,000 (from 386,000 to 349,000).

The 6.7 percent figure is more than six times as high as it was in 1997 (1.0), and more than five times as great as 2000 (1.2). The EE unemployment rate reached an all-time high of 7.0 in the first quarter of 2003.

Despite continuing high levels of EE unemployment, the government has issued more than 900,000 H-1B visas in new, renewal and exempt categories since FY 2000, many of them in high-tech fields.

"We're pleased that Congress allowed the annual H-1B cap to drop to 65,000 earlier this month, but U.S. EEs are still competing for scarce jobs in an artificially saturated labor market," IEEE-USA President-Elect John Steadman said. "In addition, demand is shrinking as high-tech jobs are outsourced overseas. Despite the bleak employment outlook, some H-1B proponents are still calling on Congress to increase the number of visa exemptions."

Among other high-tech professionals, the unemployment rate jumped for computer hardware engineers (5.7 percent to 6.9), computer software engineers (4.1 to 4.6), and network and computer systems administrators (5.6 to 7.6). The rate fell for computer scientists and systems analysts (5.6 to 4.8), computer programmers (7.5 to 7.1), and network systems and data communications analysts (5.5 to 5.0).

The third-quarter jobless rate for mechanical engineers rose slightly from 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent, while the rates for civil engineers (3.9 percent) and industrial engineers (5.9 percent) remained the same.

From:http://www.ieeeusa.org/releases/2003/101403pr.html