Defense cutbacks began in 1988 and are likely to escalate during the next few years. Those percentages dropped to 13 and 8 percent, respectively, in 1992. Engineers are heavily represented in industries that produce military-related hardware and software. In the aerospace industry, they accounted for one-fifth of all jobs, and in the electronic components and communication equipment segments of the electrical equipment industry, they held 12 percent of all jobs in 1992. The percentage of the total engineering workforce involved in defense-related work, however, is much lower today than it was 25 years ago.
Engineering is one of the fields most affected by the defense drawdown.
Another hard-hit group will be those employed in computer, mathematical, and operations research specialties , where the total number of jobs is expected to decline from 69,800 in 1987 to 54,500 in 1997. D employment is also being adversely affected by defense budget cutbacks. Only a few pockets of the economy, i.e., only a few industries, occupations, and communities, are likely to suffer measurable injury. Some companies have already chosen to downsize rather than venture into new markets.