U.S. aerospace employment has reached
its lowest level since 1953 — dropping to 689,000 at the end of 2002. Based
on the latest data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the figure should serve as a call to action for a national plan to
revitalize the aerospace workforce, according to AIA President and CEO John W.
Douglass. The workforce crisis facing the industry is accelerating, Douglass
said, and the trend must be reversed before the future health of the industry
is jeopardized.
Aerospace employment has dropped 106,000, or by 13 percent since September
11, 2001, and it has fallen by nearly half, or 642,000 since December 1989, a
period that marks the end of the Cold War. Douglass said the workforce
decline is the result of several converging factors: the crisis in civil
aviation and commercial space business, industry mergers and acquisitions, and
the September 11 attacks. He said the Commission on the Future of the U.S.
Aerospace Industry has called for an interagency task force to develop a
national plan to make long-term investments in education in math and science
and to encourage students to become part of the aerospace workforce.
AIA has named the workforce crisis one of its Top Ten Issues for 2003.
White papers on the issue can be seen at
http://89.0.1.18/issues/subject/subject.cfm
- Visit AIA’s homepage at http://www.aia-aerospace.org
- P.A. Rel 2003-11, 04.03.03
- The Aerospace Industries Association has moved to new offices at 1000
Wilson Boulevard, 17th Floor, Arlington, VA, 22209.
