Diving Into Occupation-Level Data: A Focus on Engineering

We continue our fall blog series exploring various occupations and their connection to the academic credentials being awarded by Texas colleges and universities. Previous posts have looked at broad trends in terms of projected growth occupations, as well as reviewing supply-and-demand gaps in the projected highest growth occupations (numeric and percentage). In this post, we take a look at selected occupations in engineering to see how many graduates Texas colleges and universities produced in 2023 as compared to the number of job openings estimated within those specific occupations.

Gaps between Jobs Created and Degrees Awarded: Selected Engineering Occupations

As has been the case throughout this series, we are using the “CIP-to-SOC” crosswalk that connects academic programs (CIP codes) with occupations (SOC codes) to determine where gaps exist between estimated job openings and degrees awarded. See “A Quick Note About Methodology” below for more details. Using data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics company, we reviewed six engineering disciplines with the highest supply (degrees) and demand (jobs) in 2023.

Before reviewing the data below, one of the caveats to the broader conversation about employment of engineering graduates is that more than 9 out of every 10 engineering graduates (bachelor’s and master’s levels) in 2023 were employed or continuing education within six months of graduation (NACE First Destinations Study for the College Class of 2023). This provides important context, especially as we discuss the supply-and-demand gaps within specific engineering disciplines.

• The first group of programs visualized below are those that have “More Openings” (demand) than degrees produced (supply) in 2023. For example, there were an estimated 2,666 job openings in Texas for civil engineers in 2023, while Texas institutions produced 1,819 graduates (bachelor’s and above) in academic disciplines directly related to civil engineering. This created a deficit of 847 more graduates needed to fill annual openings, which are defined as a combination of growth through new jobs as well as replacement jobs that “will need to be filled by new hires due to existing workers leaving the occupation” (Lightcast). Across the three disciplines in the “More Openings” box, there a total of 5,618 openings in civil, industrial, and petroleum engineering occupations, while there were 3,304 bachelor’s degrees or higher awarded across all institutions in Texas in 2023. Collectively, this represents an estimated gap of 2,314 (41%) degreed engineers needed across these three disciplines.
• The second group of programs below are those that had “More Degrees” than estimated openings in 2023. Across these three disciplines (mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering), Texas institutions awarded 117% more degrees (6,839) than estimated openings (3,152) in 2023. While degree production in academic programs directly linked to mechanical engineering or electrical engineering occupations was more than 101% higher than estimated openings, there were 303% more degrees awarded in chemical engineering (952) than estimated openings (234) in Texas in 2023.

A Quick Note About Methodology: We are using the “CIP-to-SOC” crosswalk to determine where gaps exist between occupations and academic credentials awarded in Texas. CIP codes refer to “Classification of Instructional Programs” (CIP) codes created by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), while the “Standard Occupational Classification” (SOC) system is federal standard published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). One of the challenges of using this taxonomy is the somewhat broad interpretation of which academic programs (CIPs) align with which occupations (SOCs) in certain domains. Another challenge is the lack of educational level requirements for different occupations, which makes mapping the credential level (certificate, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, etc.) to specific occupations not possible. For the purposes of this analysis, only those academic disciplines that are directly linked to the occupations shown above were included. For example, the academic programs that were included in the electrical engineering occupation were “Electrical and Electronics Engineering (CIP 14.1001)” and “Electrical and Computer Engineering (CIP 14.4701)”.

So What?

Before any panic sets in about thousands of 2023 engineering graduates in Texas being unemployed, the supply-and-demand data shown above have to be contextualized in terms of the broader knowledge about engineering graduates in general. Based on the NACE data referenced previously, just over 90% of new engineering graduates in 2023 were either employed or pursuing further education within 6 months of completing a bachelor’s or a master’s degree from a Texas institution. Even though it appears that Texas is producing too many engineering graduates in certain fields and not enough in others, the reality is that there is overlap within engineering majors that allow for graduates to crossover into other disciplines within the field of engineering. What the data above highlight is the need for consistent review of academic program alignment with occupational demand to ensure that graduates from higher education institutions are well-equipped to meet current and future economic and workforce demands in Texas. Building on this knowledge about engineering occupations, our final blog posts in this series will explore two other high-need areas where alignment between academic preparation and workforce need is paramount: nursing education and teacher preparation.