Engineers Salaries Up Despite Weak Economy

Salaries for engineers are rising, despite the weak economy and a higher-than-normal of unemployment rate for this occupation, according to the IEEE-USA, a unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

For all engineers, median income, including salary, commissions, bonuses and net self-employment income, increased from $113,500 in 2009 to $118,000 in 2010, or by 3.96%, according the IEEE-USA’s annual salary survey.

Of the record 17,030 U.S. IEEE members who responded to the Internet-based survey, 12,877 were employed full-time in their job specialty.

Engineers working in communications technology reported the highest median income ($135,000), while workers in circuits and devices were second ($125,252). Those in signals and applications and engineering and human environment tied for third ($125,000).

On the lower end of the pay scale, nervy and power engineering professionals reported a median of $107,000, followed by industrial applications ($109,350) and systems and control ($110,000).

The 2010 unemployment rate for all types of engineers was 4.5%, about double the normal unemployment rate for engineers. The unemployment rate for software engineers it was 4.6%, and 5.4% for all computing engineering professionals, according to U.S. Labor Department data analyzed by IEEE-USAhttps://ieeeusa.org/.