A recent recent article in BusinessWeek, written by Michael Mandel, BW's award-winning chief economist, does a rather scary job of aggregating recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Yikes! These numbers are scary. A 10% decline in engineering occupations in just 8 months? A 9% decline in computer and mathematical employment? An almost 12% decline in “creative” occupations, such as designers and the like?

But first, let me tell you what’s in each of these groups. The ‘computer and mathematical occupations’ are mainly software engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts, with some network analysts and the like thrown in. ‘Engineering and architecture occupations’ (actually the BLS reverses the order) is roughly 67% engineers, about 10% architects, surveyors and the like, with the remainder engineering and mapping technicians. ‘Life, physical, and social science occupations” includes natural (and unnatural!) scientists, psychologists, economists, market and survey researchers, urban planners, and a variety of scientific technicians. And last but not least, the arts or “creative” category, as I call it, includes designers, actors, artists, athletes, dancers, musicians, reporters, editors, writers, photographers, and everyone else that goes along with that. (If you want to see a full list for 2008, go to here).

What unites all of these groups is that they are all producers of “intangible investments.” That is, engineers, scientists, computer software engineers, artists, designers, and so forth all create long-lived intellectual property which has the potential to contribute to the economy. This includes new software programs, new products, new pieces of art and so forth. Writers produce written works of various degrees of usefulness, but in the aggregate are beneficial. — Michael Mandel. Read the article

There are plenty of designer's and design studios around the country bragging how they are "as busy as we have ever been", but we can't help but note that the number of "quote shoppers" has increased dramatically since third quarter 08 - which correlates with the data from the BW article.

This suggests to us that freelancers and small studios who are "busy as ever" are reducing their rates in order to compete in a saturated creative market.

How true is this assumption? We have a forum thread started for this topic, please join in the discussion.