Repository: UIHistories Project: SWE - News Clippings Book [PAGE 17]

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Womanpower Boosted y Secretary of Labor

VOL. IV, No. S

AUTUMN, 1963

i gineeringjrgraduates must total 7J,000 each year during the 1960'sl lo achieve the Nation's objectives; ol full employment and an adequate defense. Yet only 45,000 students earned engineering de• - ees in 1961 compared with more than 57,000 in 1950. There is already a severe shortn ' e of engineers. The Bureau of Employment Security stated in .lane that job opportunities for engineers were foremost among the, vacancies reported by the public i mployment offices throughout the: 150 labor market areas. Women Are Qualified It is alleged that engineering v.ork is physically too demanding for women. The great majority of l$j \ \ . miiard WirU uigineering jobs today are desk As Secretary of Labor I have the jobs requiring no more physical responsibility for studying and exertion than wielding the commaking recommendations on many pass and slide rule. The old prefacets of the labor, market, both > judice that women lack the "enon the difficulties today and the ' gineer's kind of mind" is not borne likely problems of tomorrow. It out by reports from employers and particularly pleases me, and makes other sources that women have my task that much easier, when successfully demonstrated their a publication such as ENGINEER, ability as engineers. There is evidgeared to such a large and im- ence that women studying meportant readership, shows an chanical and technical subjects awareness of a national problem make better grades than men who and makes suggestions as sensible scored as well on aptitude tests. Today there are approximately as those contained in your recent article on "The.Woman Engineer". 7,500 women engineers—10 times For the members of my'-..depart- the number in 1940; yet they repment and I all feel that it. is es- resent only one percent of the sential that the nation adopt a profession. If more qualified more favorable attitude toward women are to be attracted to this the presence of women;in many strategic occupation, encouragetraditionally male dominated pro- ment and training must begin fessions, of - which ; engineering is early—in' high school. There is no lack of accredited engineering a prime example." ', , . . colleges which admit qualified In National Interest women. Too often, however, young It is clearly in the national girls showing interest in and aptiinterest to encourage qualified tude for scientific and technical young women to enter the en- subjects are not encouraged bygineering field. The facts about parents and teachers. The failure women's suitability for an en- to direct the_m to the prerequisite gineering vocation are so often courses in high school forecloses interwoven, with threads of fic- their opportunity to enter the ention or prejudice that it is first gineering curriculum in college. Technicians Needed necessary to separate the fact from fiction. Let us examine The development of more subwomen's potential. in the context professional technicians to release of the total engineering manpower professional engineers' for more environment. demanding responsibilities is cerThe shortage of engineers is one tainly needed. Women should be of the most serious aspects of encouraged to qualify for these our whole manpower picture. technician jobs. However, if the When President Kennedy sent his training plan for women is limited Manpower Report to Congress in to this objective, it will defeat March 1963, he said, "Manpower the goal of making the best utiliT. . . is the indispensible means of zation of our manpower resources. converting other resources to manIt has been said that only -an kind's use and benefit. How well Individual person—not manpower we develop and employ human in the mass—makes a discovery, skills is fundamental in decid- conceives a product, or inspires a. ing how much we will accomplish student. The brains, talent, and: as a Nation." This statement of training of women as well as men; the President applies in a very are urgently needed in the many particular way to the engineering challenging engineering tasks of a profession. If our goal of a higher technological society. The motivagross national product is to be tion of our qualified young women realized, the number of engineers, toward careers in engineering is especially those employed in re- a job for all of us — parents* search and development, must be schools, management, labor, and! almost twice as high in 1970 as professional societies. it was in 1959. The National Science Foundation estimates that the number of