Mechanical engineers also design tools needed by other engineers for their work.
Mechanical engineers work in many industries and their work varies by industry and function.
Mechanical engineering is the broadest engineering discipline, extending across many interdependent specialties. Top Mechanical engineers held about 220,000 jobs in 1998. Engineering and management services, business services, and the Federal Government provided most of the remaining jobs. Although overall manufacturing employment is expected to decline, employment of mechanical engineers in manufacturing should increase as the demand for improved machinery and machine tools grows and industrial machinery and processes become increasingly complex. Employment of mechanical engineers in business and engineering services firms is expected to grow faster than average as other industries in the economy increasingly contract out to these firms to solve engineering problems.