The engineering profession in transition

This report by Colonel Carey, chairman of the Engineers´ Joint Council Committee on the 1946 Survey of the Engineering Profession, reviews the highlights of the EJC´s 1946 survey which is entitled “The engineering profession in transition.” The survey is soon to be published and will be available for general sale at $1 per copy. It is a continuation of previous work which covered the years 1929 to 1934, the present survey covering the years 1939 through 1946. Three articles reporting various phases of the former survey were published in ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING as follows: “Professional Aspects of Engineering Education,” (EE, Aug ´36, pp 863–7); “Unemployment in the Engineering Profession,” (EE, Feb ´37, pp 216–23); and “Employment in the Engineering Profession,” (EE, May ´37, 524–31). Of particular interest in this latest study, restricted for the first time to persons identified through their membership in the six national professional engineering societies as being qualified members of the profession, are the comparisons afforded for 1939, 1943, and 1946, indicating the economic status of the engineer before, during, and after the war years. The participating societies in this survey are: AIEE, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, which make up the Engineers´ Joint Council, and the National Society of Professional Engineers, joining in this project by invitation of EJC.