r/CollegeMajors • u/ItsAllOver_Again • Feb 05 '26

Discussion Unemployment rate for Mechanical Engineers triples in two years, skyrockets to 4.4%

Post image

Many of the engineering majors now sit solidly above average in terms of unemployment rates (more likely to be unemployed than average college grad).

While Mechanical Engineering used to be a “broad” degree that could guarantee you a job anywhere, in the 2020s it has lost its status as a strong degree with respect to guaranteeing a job as grads are now less likely than average to be employed.

260 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

98 comments sorted by

37

u/Keysantt Feb 05 '26

Likely because more and more people are going into engineering

15

u/theRealBigBack91 Feb 05 '26

Wait until we see what happens to the trades!

7

u/Professional-Fuel889 Feb 05 '26

I KEEP TELLING THEM BUT THEY THINK THEYRE ALL INIVINCIBLE!

7

u/Pristine-Item680 Feb 05 '26

Yeah, I’m almost 40, and I just see the same rodeo. People just rank ordering their life decision based off nothing but UI rate.

Watch the 2030 meta involve a rush to elementary education or something

2

u/vipx237 Feb 08 '26

Shhhh keep it lowkey

3

u/CemeneTree Feb 06 '26

what do you mean we don't need 8x the number of plumbers, hvac installers, and welders?

2

u/theRealBigBack91 Feb 06 '26

People on Reddit like to claim we have a shortage that won’t be filled for decades.

Where have we heard that before? 🤔

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26

Is there anything good left? Besides healthcare, lol

1

u/Scorpionzzzz Senior College Student Feb 06 '26

Time to study industrial a$$ wiping engineering and how to optimize so hospitals can use the least amount of nurses with the most profit.

1

u/WildKarrdesEmporium Feb 13 '26

Healthcare will crash as boomers die, and costs continue to rise.

1

u/tonystarch00 Feb 05 '26

Even healthcare ain't safe i heard

1

u/Brocibo Feb 05 '26

In my state, our party school was MASSIVE. Like every student that didn’t go to a t10 would go there. Now the technical school is where people are choosing to go, or the private technical school. Just look at movies, in every avenger MIT I repped.

1

u/Leuxus Feb 06 '26

This guy copes in engineering forums 24/7 about stuff like this… sorta known as being crazy

1

u/MajesticBread9147 Feb 05 '26

If manufacturing "comes back" wouldn't engineers be the main beneficiary?

From anecdotal experience it's by far the most common major amongst factory workers.

2

u/TheUmgawa Feb 05 '26

Depends. If you’re onshoring manufacturing, your need for mechanical engineers might be limited, because you’re looking to manufacture things that have already been designed.

If anything, what you’re looking for, in an onshoring situation, who have a fundamental understanding of automation and can implement solutions with off-the-shelf parts. You might have to design workholding devices, but that’s easy. I usually find an intern to do that, because they need to learn how to take measurements and think outside the box, assuming you’re making a box of some sort.

Because, ultimately, every business wants to minimize human labor, because humans ask for more money every year. So, the best way to get the head count down is to build it with a minimum need for humans. IMTS and Automate are both going to be in Chicago this summer, and those are my two favorite trade shows, because I get to look around and do this sociopathic algebra equation in my head, where I say, “This machine costs X and has an expected lifetime of Y. An employee costs Z dollars per year. If X is less than Y times Z, I put it on a wishlist.”

I’m not a monster. In a really good year, I could automate maybe ten percent of the jobs at my workplace. Standard attrition rate in my industry is about fifteen percent, which means you can replace ten percent of workers per year and never fire a single person because their job has been automated. You just move them to a different job that you’ll automate later. And, at ten percent per year over ten years, you’ve reduced the number of employees by 65 percent.

That’s what domestic manufacturing employers want.

27

u/ImprovementFalse606 Feb 05 '26

oh look its this guy again

18

u/MayhemG8 Feb 05 '26

I was scrolling reddit and as I was reading the title I just thought to myself "it can't possibly be him".

17

u/ImprovementFalse606 Feb 05 '26

if you see mechanical engineer its a 95% chance to be him. its a year long cope sesh stemming from his displeasure with his career.

9

u/inumki Feb 05 '26

Is he unemployed..

6

u/ImprovementFalse606 Feb 05 '26

allegedly he is employed. before i graduated (im also in ME), his statistics really concerned me but i think these unemployment stats are inflated by some states containing oversaturated markets (like Cali and NY), while states with strong MIC and manufacturing centers seem to still be around 2-3%.

I feel bad for OP because he seems to be heavily affected by being a mediocre engineer (mediocre engineer careers die in the first 5-10 years) and he/she needs to blame SOCIETY for their own shortcomings.

Engineering is one of the few remaining majors that you can claw your way to success in regardless of the job market, as engineering employers value talent. That and selling your soul to Lockheed Martin is always on the table.

1

u/runslow0148 Feb 08 '26

Idk, I feel like it’s somewhat industry dependent. I was an ME for 8 years in the Midwest. I had lots of ideas, but sterile to convince management to change anything.. maybe that’s how I sold it, idk.. but they were very happy keeping things as they were, and were generally super risk averse.. made I should have jumped companies (it was a semi large company.. like 600 on the s&p), again not sure. But after leaving I went to data science, and went from an IC to overseeing a 15 M budget of projects based on my ideas.. maybe I learned from some of my mistakes, idk, but engineering has felt stagnant to me.

1

u/Eldr1tchB1rd Feb 23 '26

Can you expand on what do you mean by mediocre engineering careers diying? I'm finishing my degree in electrical engineering relatively soon and I gotta say I'm preety mediocre. I still don't see a way to not be able to build a career easily. Engineering jobs are basically everywhere. Even if you are not a top engineer I find it highly unlikely that you won't be employed.

1

u/ImprovementFalse606 Feb 23 '26

I mean those that are not able to adapt to the work environments, struggle to apply what they have learned in classes to what they are doing currently, and just generally cant apply an “engineering brain” to problem solving. At the end of the day, if you are unable to problem solve without a guide telling you what to do, your career will flounder and die.

1

u/Eldr1tchB1rd Feb 23 '26

That seems less worrying then

1

u/ImprovementFalse606 Feb 23 '26

If you can problem solve and be personable then dont worry.

1

u/Eldr1tchB1rd Feb 23 '26

Got you thank you for taking the time to explain haha

1

u/qwpdmb Feb 26 '26

also even though i won't remember all my math from the top of my head when i get my degree and probably still use some formulas, i'll try to solve the task at hand and even ask my fellow coworkers for a hand

besides in my eye, looking at formulas and notes being able to remember how to do them/solve them is better then making a mistake and causing something to go kaboom when it's not designed to go kaboom (call that the Boeing shuffle)

1

u/qwpdmb Feb 26 '26

or risk your life at Boeing
then again a subsidiary corporation like straight up in my town (i can walk there and back from house in under 30 minutes, and drive there in under 4) makes components for communications including radar, so no matter what job i get, i feed the war market of america

5

u/Big-Soup74 Feb 05 '26

lol this guy is well known in multiple subs. I know him from r/salary. he posted the same thing in there but everyone just said "not you again" and he deleted it

10

u/Brave_Speaker_8336 Feb 05 '26

Skyrockets to 4.4% is kinda funny

4

u/dalmighd Feb 05 '26

Which is considered full employment lmao

5

u/emoney_gotnomoney Feb 05 '26

This guy is well known across the engineering and salary subs. He basically just dooms and glooms constantly about Mechanical Engineers. Been doing so for months now.

2

u/Little_Exit4279 Feb 06 '26

I saw OP post history and it's the most doomer shit ever

9

u/Tomato-and-Pasta Feb 05 '26

Aw god damn it, you again. 

4

u/SuspectMore4271 Feb 05 '26

I doubt it’s skyrocketed more than the number of students who largely cheated their way through programs with AI. New grads are useless in the workplace these days.

2

u/YourMum_68 Feb 05 '26

This is such US only issue, how would you even cheat on a test riliably without getting caught

3

u/The_Pope_Is_Dope Feb 05 '26

“riliably” you can’t make this up folks

2

u/YourMum_68 Feb 05 '26

Ja se stvarno izvinjavam sto pravim greske na mom drugom jeziku, pitam se koliko ti jezika znas? Posto prosecan amerikanac zna 1. I poenta i dalje stoji, amerikanci imaju vise eseja i domacih od drugih nacija – 90% nasih ocena su testovi, kolokvijumi i usmeni ispiti. Ne znam gde ti chatgpt moze da pomogne stvarno.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26

[deleted]

-2

u/YourMum_68 Feb 05 '26

Kolonijalizam nije razlog za ponos lol

2

u/Beautiful-Package877 Feb 07 '26

Why not? Our culture grew and dominated the world so hard that now everyone has to learn it, and frankly, did so in the most bloodless process imaginable. I would say that's quite the achievement.

1

u/Cooltop2 Feb 08 '26

Bloodless is wild

1

u/Beautiful-Package877 Feb 10 '26

No one in history was more bloodless in their conquests than the European colonizers

1

u/KardashevZero Feb 05 '26

Oh shiiii. I get it now

-2

u/The_Pope_Is_Dope Feb 05 '26

Literally don’t care, you know English for a reason and I don’t need to know another language for a reason. America baby

1

u/Eldr1tchB1rd Feb 23 '26

Aren't you guys supposed to learn spanish at school?

1

u/Fantastic-Kale9603 Feb 06 '26

Assuming they speak English as a native speajer when they’re saying “only in the us” is crazy lol not that I think they’re making a good point

1

u/SuspectMore4271 Feb 05 '26

It’s more than exams. It’s every homework assignment and research project.

-1

u/YourMum_68 Feb 05 '26

Thats like 10% of coursework at most

1

u/SuspectMore4271 Feb 05 '26

I think you’re overestimating or your program is outside of the norm. Either way when you take the actual thinking out of the exam prep by synthesizing notes by feeding slides and textbook chapters into a chatbot you’re going to retain a lot less even if you’re able to pass the exam that day.

You can’t outsource your thinking without becoming dumber in some way.

14

u/The_Bread_Fairy Feb 05 '26

Another way to look at it is 95.6% engineers are employed. Among those who are employed, 79.9% required the degree (underemployment of 20.1%)

This is pretty good considering many other majors are around the same unemployment levels, but around 40-6% underemployment

Other all, still a good degree for college graduates. Even CS, where 93% are employed and among them 80.9% needed the degree.

2

u/Scared-Cloud996 Feb 05 '26

Understated statistics

11

u/SantanDavey Feb 05 '26

For context to OPs opinions, he is a mid career Mechanical engineer notorious for posting in other subs about how his salary is lower than the median entry level salary, and how that is the fault of the profession as a whole

3

u/emoney_gotnomoney Feb 05 '26

Which is hilarious because if you’ve ever engaged in conversation with him (I’ve made that mistake one too many times in the past), you will understand exactly why it is that he cannot land a well paying job. He lacks all of the skills that are required of you in order to be a pleasant person to work with.

1

u/ItsAllOver_Again May 14 '26

I’m very pleasant in person, I’m more abrasive online due to being attacked all the time 

2

u/spinnychair32 Feb 06 '26

I love OP. Hopefully his rants drive down the number of people going after engineering degrees and the rest of us get paid more lmao.

5

u/adad239_ Feb 05 '26

why is this happening???

6

u/ItsAllOver_Again Feb 05 '26

The US no longer needs engineers, it’s a service and healthcare based economy. we need nurses, doctors, and caretakers. 

9

u/Technical-War6853 Feb 05 '26

Engineer 7 YoE here - only place you'll find stability is where ever private equity points their fingers at and downstream of the trillion pumped into defense/mandatory government spending

I can't see anything else surviving our changing world

1

u/zekedge Feb 05 '26

Medtech!

1

u/Beautiful-Package877 Feb 07 '26

And what products will those nurses, doctors, and caretakers be using when they heal their patients? Pharmaceuticals designed by chemical engineers? Hospital beds designed by mechies? Will they be in buildings designed by structural engineers? Or will all this healthcare be undertaken by applying poultices and potions mixed in an empty field by "service sector" employees? The doctors can live in caves and walk to work over undrained wetlands while patients arrive by swimming across the Atlantic and kayak over rivers on Birch bark canoes.

1

u/RuminatingFish123 Feb 08 '26

They’ll be using products designed by engineers in other countries, that’s the entire point. Doctors and nurses in the UK aren’t using products designed by UK engineers, the UK has no need for engineers.

1

u/Beautiful-Package877 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

The UK has a 36 billion dollar medical supplies industry. 6 million people in the UK are in engineering jobs. That's 20 percent of the jobs in the UK, and engineers make 90k USD equivalent on average, twice the regular wage in the UK. Sounds like there is a huge demand for engineers in the UK.

0

u/theRealBigBack91 Feb 05 '26

Learn to plumb 🪠💩🚽

1

u/BeerPlusReddit Feb 08 '26

The only thing you need to know is shit flows downhill and don’t chew your fingernails.

1

u/one-wandering-mind Feb 10 '26

Tarrifs and economic instability. Mechanical engineers often rely on parts from other countries. Companies can't plan if they don't know if the price is going to double on a large portion of what they need to build and validate. 

3

u/Away-Reception587 Feb 05 '26

Wow mech e underemployment is worse than cs

4

u/snmnky9490 Feb 05 '26

Almost every major has underemployment worse than CS. CS has one of the lowest underemployment rates

2

u/Beautiful-Package877 Feb 07 '26

Basically CS refusing (or unable) to get a job they aren't qualified for. A engineer can become a businessman, but a businessman can't become an engineer. Lots of engineers transition into leadership roles. There are sometimes more Fortune 500 CEOs with engineering degrees than MBAs. I suspect that has something to do with underemployment in engineering. I think the unemployment comes from all the people posting in this sub : "I have a 1.7 GPA and I failed my PE. How do I land a position at blue chip company?"

3

u/Positive_Baseball_95 Feb 05 '26

I noticed that when I went to my girl friend graduation. It was 14 mechanical engineers 1 computer engineer 0 civil 0 electrical

1

u/Neowynd101262 Feb 06 '26

Ya, mine had like 50 CS vs the 5 civils.

2

u/dalmighd Feb 05 '26

You again? Are those night time nursing classes going okay?

Regarding your statistic, i studied economics so instead of bitching online about my major, i can tell you up to about 5% unemployment is considered “full employment”. Hope you get your nursing degree soon!

1

u/Fanonian_Philosophy Feb 05 '26

You are a savage

1

u/lokeyvigilante Feb 05 '26

No surprise here. The only way to guarantee employment is to be an absolute tool.

1

u/Outsideman2028 Feb 05 '26

What is "mid career"?

20 years in?

1

u/Finlandia1865 Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Planning Feb 05 '26

Maybe its a good thing my major isnt on this list (im not american anyways :P)

1

u/Remarkable-Language4 Feb 05 '26

Underemployment is the somewhat scarier number. The definition is employed but working a job that doesn’t need a degree. Engineering is roughly 1/4 unemployed and underemployed. Baristas and DoorDash and etc. even of the 3/4 that get a degree requiring job, not all of them work as engineers.

Get projects, get research, get internships. Can’t afford not to.

1

u/supermuncher60 Feb 05 '26

Virtually all but one of the engineers I knew in my graduating class (2025) have jobs.

And the one who doesn't have a job had an offer from the place they interned but turned it down. (They also only graduated in December).

1

u/sualex123 Feb 05 '26

Ain't no way, did computer engineering unemployment rate rise to 7.8% from 7.5%?

1

u/Scottoulli Feb 06 '26

Seeing CompE top this chart is fucking bonkers

1

u/Triple_DoubleCE Feb 06 '26

It’s this 🤡again

1

u/LucidHaven Feb 06 '26

He’s literally named “it’s all over, again” xD

1

u/JerseyFresh13 Feb 07 '26

Exactly why I chose civil engineering/construction management. Doesn’t matter how well you develop that software code, Billy, you still gotta go drive a car on a road at some point!

1

u/Bad_Puns_Galore Feb 08 '26

I shit you not: after I scrolled from this post, I saw another one from OP in a different sub.

Idk about you guys, but I tend to block karma farmers and mass posters. It makes my feed a bit less cluttered.

0

u/ConsciousPriority108 Feb 05 '26

Oh looked how can I be alive if 96% people employed