Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Labor market trends for nuclear engineers

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7040649
Concern over the adequacy of supply of nuclear engineers has been growing in recent years. This concern is the result of a decline since 1979 in the number of nuclear engineering academic programs at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Falling graduate and undergraduate enrollments and degrees have parallelled this program decline. These declines occurred during a period in which the nuclear power industry added no new reactor systems. These events had severe implications for design and engineering of new reactor systems and facilities, activities that employ large numbers of nuclear engineers. This paper examines the nuclear engineering labor market. The first part of the paper examines historical trends in new graduates, employment, and salaries as the basis for understanding the current labor market for nuclear engineers. The second part of the paper examines expectations of future employment needs and new graduate supply and assesses future labor market conditions.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
DOE; NRC; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76OR00033
OSTI ID:
7040649
Report Number(s):
DOE/OR/00033-T512; ON: DE93005285
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English