Would you talk about your micropenis on your first date?

Didn't think so.

isn't this kind of hard to do unless you limit your definition of 'employment' to something very specific? what if someone pursues further education? or goes into teaching part-time in order to focus on independent projects? or is making a film? are these people 'employed' or 'unemployed'?

I have asked for this data from multiple schools and was told they do not collect these statistics.

check with schools that offer co-op programs - they have data on this - at least % of CURRENT students who've managed to find an internship.

Would they still give an honest answer though?

Many institutions collect this data but only at the institution level not necessarily the academic unit level. The biggest difficult is that most graduates do not reply.

With that said, check out the Salary Survey from Syracuse University.

https://oira.syr.edu/arc/results.asp

More important than employment rates are what services that an architecture program has to help its students enter the profession. Does it have a Career Fair, connections with alums, firms or workshops on job searching, etc.

Ask the program for the names of a few recent alums and ask them.

Why not contact a few employers and ask them what they think of the particular program you are considering.

Well, my two cents (since I started this thread) to the people looking at architecture schools and entering the field of architecture, I think it is curiously absent that they do not "collect" this data. It's a very straight forward question, after graduation what % of the class find full time employment (salaried position w/ benefits, you know a JOB) in the field of architecture? A simple questionnaire would take care of this, and I think a recent graduating class would happily send this information back.

If not an individual school, you guys mean to tell me that the AIA, or any of the academic organizations do not track this number? That sorta defies common sense. Isn't there a student organization? Maybe some of you could work with them to get some real data to look at and share with us?

If you are being asked to invest tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands? I have not been in school for 20 years) not to mention your time, I think it would be irresponsible not to have this information.

Rasa, it actually would be illegal for them not to give you an honest, accurate answer.

Like everything it is all supply and demand. So I guess I am cautioning the folks looking into this field to really verify there will be demand from the market for your services. This is a completely, and unrelated, topic of the quality of a program, how hard you work, etc...

nobody answers those questionnaires, though...........

...they go right on the junk mail pike on top of the previous 20 letters from your alma mater soliciting donations.....

'pile'. i don't have a junk mail 'pike' yet, though maybe stabbing those letters and credit card solicitations right through the heart would relieve a little stress and frustration.

Really, OK? Well, nonetheless, I find it very hard to believe that the professional architecture educators in the US have no idea what the placement rate is from their programs.

How many people graduate from accredited architecture programs each year?

As an FYI, I've read there is somewhere around +60,000 licensed architects in the US.

yeah, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard. just remember to take any statistic with a grain of salt, since most architects would put informing their old school about what they're doing pretty close to last on their list of priorities.

this is doubly true for those doing actually interesting things, most of whom would consider themselves to be 'too good' or too busy doing 'important' things to fill out a little form.

...kind of how the williamsburg hipsters were 'too cool' to fill out their census questionnaires.

you ask to many questions gibson. This has been noted on your permanent application record. Architecture is a chosen profession. After God retired we are the only ones taking care of the place.

Your insistance on employment rates and salaries is downright insulting. What are you? A poor person? There must be a soup kitchen around you that will take care of your needs.

gibson - I'm on an alumni board for one of my schools and, as elinor and others have alluded to, it's actually harder to get that data than it sounds. Some people just don't respond, some people drop off the radar fairly quickly.

From the anecdotal they've collected, it's pretty bleak right now. Certainly less than 40%. I think for 2009, the number was closer to 15-20%, if memory serves. It's a huge issue for all schools and one they aren't ignoring, although it may seem that way. Reality is, beyond restructuring the curricula (which you simply can't do overnight), working to stage portfolio/job workshops, job fairs, etc. there isn't a whole lot they can do - they can't manufacture demand.

the number who graduate was given in a recent thread. And, according to NCARB, there were 104,126 licensed in-state architects in the US in 2008. 'in-state' means the state where the architect resides. So, basically, that's pretty close to the number of actual individuals, not counting people (like me) who have multiple, out of state registrations.

@greg...

Don't forget that polling is often skewed in favor of the 'braggarts' and 'complainers.'

Thanks for the post Greg, and the correction on the number of architects, (I might have been thinking of AIA members), but I am always stunned what a small profession it really is.

And that is the point I am trying to get across to people looking to get into architecture. It is a demand issue, not an educational one. According to the posts, we have roughly 9,000 grads coming on line every year (I have no first hand knowledge of this stat).

I think everyone can agree that the profession has been in contraction, not expansion, for at least three years consecutively. That means that there are many qualified, experienced people looking for work right now.

OK, I just penciled out this "non-scientific" scenario:
104,126 architects
15% unemployment - 15,618
9,000 new grads x 3 years = 18,000 new people

It's just numbers. I always urge people to get a job in an architecture office before, or during, going to school. I do not care what it is you are doing, just be around it. Now if you cannot find a position like that right now, perhaps that is a clue to where things are right now.

There's a lot of people who work at architecture firms who don't have the title of architect.

However, the industry is still growing ignoring the bubble.

There's 1,282,000 people employed in architecture and engineer services sector.

Last year, there was 1,280,000.
In 2009, 1,377,000.
In 2008, 1,453,000.
In 2007, 1,420,000.
In 2006, 1,356,000.
In 2005, 1,284,000.
In 2004, 1,237,000.
In 2003, 1,233,000.
In 2002, 1,251,000.
In 2001, 1,278,000.

Using a standard regression formula... by 2022, there will be approximately 1,415,000 people employed. That's a 133,000 positions or 12,000 positions a year. Although this includes a fair amount of civil engineering employment, these figures do not represent construction or real estate development.

What would be really interesting to see is what the number of engineering graduates (civil, structural) is compared to these job growth numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if engineering students weren't in a tighter pinch than architecture students.

And it comes down to a larger issue that many have talked about since the 1990s. One of the largest generations ever will be entering the workforce between 2005-2010.

I would say that the country never really heeded the warning. Perhaps if the recession happened a few years earlier or a few years later, it wouldn't have had the impact that it currently has for Generation Y. The timing is plainly awful because the long-term ramifications of generations coming and going during recessions has been studied quite well.

The interesting political overtone now is that Generation Y is being blamed for its lack of housing, its lack of employment and its inability to contribute to the economy. It's already been declared incapable, irrelevant and unresponsive. And let's not even get started on the use of the word 'entitlement.'

And one significant common response is "If you don't have a job, you should create one." As if it's even remotely possible in the most general of circumstances for a 22 year old to march down to the bank, demand a line of credit and open an office.

I'm frankly surprised that the slope of job figures in the architecture and engineering industry is not only positive... it's 2.4!

Below are stats on the number of architecture students and degrees awarded according to NAAB.

http://www.naab.org/news/view.aspx?newsID=72

Overall Enrollment by Degree (N=27,852)
There are 27,852 students enrolled in NAAB-accredited degree programs; of this total, 16,493 (59%) are enrolled in Bachelor of Architecture programs, 11,009 (40%) in Master of Architecture programs, and 350 (1%) n Doctor of Architecture degree programs.

There are 17,342 students enrolled in preprofessional degree programs; of the total, 16,284 (93%) are enrolled full-time and 1,148 (7%) part-time. There are 12,365 (71%) preprofessional students enrolled in institutions with public support and 5,067 (29%) in institutions with private support.

Degrees Awarded by Accredited Programs (n=6,017)
A total of 6,017 accredited degrees were awarded during the 2009–2010 academic year: 2,596 (43%) were Bachelor of Architecture degrees; 3,394 (56%) were Master of Architecture degrees; and 27 (0.4%) were Doctor of Architecture degrees.

PREPROFESSIONAL PROGRAMS—DEGREES AWARDED
A total of 3,430 preprofessional degrees were awarded during the 2009–2010 academic year.

I read something recently (maybe it was linked here, I don't recall) about the employment statistics for law school graduates. Based on that article law schools know pretty well what the placement rate is for their gradates, and right now it's very low. Plus the way law firms tend to hire (at least the top tier) if you don't find a job that first year, you're out of luck, the next batch of graduates is out taking those spots. The schools don't go out of there way to spread that information, but career counselors do and the interesting thing was that it had almost no effect on prospective law students. Everyone thinks they are going to be in the .1% that get the $200k job right out of school. No one believes that they will be in six figure debt, living with their parents and waiting tables with a law degree. Even more suprising was that most of that well educated wait staff don't regret the decision. To them simply obtaining a law degree is impressive enough in it's own right to be worth the cost.

So even if architecture schools did collect and release this info, I'm not sure it would have a significant effect on incoming students. I know when I started college in '92 graduation and a full time job were so distant that I didn't pay much attention, and architecture was in a slump then too.

I thought people were going to start posting what they made out of college. Since no one has. I won't be the 1st

Frit, that is correct, there was a very good NYT article a couple of months ago on the law profession, I could not find it right now. Yes the law schools track very closely the placement rates of recent grads and they have seen a large reduction of students applying to colleges.

All I am saying is that it is a demand issue, it has nothing to do with how hard you work, your education, or love of architecture.

@ X/O

Structural design positions in firms like TT, Arup, SOM, etc. are and always will be extremely competitive and are very similar to the competition faced by architecture students.

The difference between structural engineering as a whole and architecture as a whole is that SE will always have more viable options if pure design goes down- they can get into rehabilitatation, analysis, research, inspection, and so forth. I think architecture might be more limited in the case of design demand dropping.

Cjw... the ultimate utility of engineering in the "architecture and engineering services" was something that I wasn't really debating.

I was more or less pointing out that-- while there are or should be positions available for architects-- I'm purely making the assumption that there are far, far more engineering graduates than architecture graduates for a limited amount of jobs. That being said, engineering graduates do have more flexibility.

Also, here was the data I produced.

2012 1,376,000
2013 1,390,000
2014 1,398,000
2015 1,396,000
2016 1,386,000
2017 1,374,000
2018 1,370,000
2019 1,379,000
2020 1,401,000
2021 1,417,000
2022 1,415,000

http://www.pratt.edu/student_life/career_services/prospective_students/

Here's a little data for you

84% of 66%? Hmm. Somehow that doesn't sound so hot. I'm going to go on a limb there and hypothesize that the 44% that hadn't responded don't have job.

I'm glad this thread has resurfaced.  If anyone has any more data, stats on recent graduate job hires, please let me know, I am working on compiling this information for a project.  Thanks