The share of American workers in the science and engineering professions fell slightly in the past decade, ending what had been a steady upward trend in the proportion of workers in fields associated with technological innovation and economic growth.
Workers in technical fields ranging from architecture to software design accounted for 4.9% of the labor force in 2010, according to a new analysis of Census data being released on Friday, down from a peak of 5.3% in 2000.
Before 2000, the share of these knowledge workers had increased in every 10-year Census since 1950, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit demographic research group in Washington that conducted the study. While the total number of workers in these fields continued to grow in the 2000s, along with the rise in total population, they now account for a relatively smaller slice of the work force.