Workforce
2011 – U.S. National Security Workforce – Snapshot
The BLS data characterizing the American space workforce does not include U.S. military space personnel, who constitute a dedicated “space cadre” maintained by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Implemented by the U.S. National Security Space Office (NSSO) in 2001 to address a perceived gap in national military space readiness, the DoD space cadre is designed to be a force of highly competent professionals skilled in the operational and tactical demands of the space medium, including the technical requirements of space vehicles, ground systems, and space systems.
2011 – U.S. Space Industry Salaries Snapshot
Space salaries have increased even as U.S. space employment has declined. In 2010, the combined average salary across the six core U.S. space industry sectors was $##. This was more than double the average 2010 U.S. private-sector salary of $##, reflecting the tendency of space jobs to require high levels of technical education and training that can generate high-value products and services.
2011 – Workforce – Snapshot
The hundreds of thousands of talented individuals working in the global space industry are critical to its overall success and future growth. The trends in space employment and education provide an indicator of the health of the industry, showing growth or decline not only in the current workforce, but also in the likely pool of future qualified individuals.
2011 – Other Space Employment Snapshot
In December 2011, Reuters reported that the Russian space workforce numbered 250,000 professionals, 90% of whom are older than 60 or younger than 30. Demographically, Russia faces a very different situation than the United States, where these two age groups make up less than 20% of the workforce.
2011 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Employment – Snapshot
Within JAXA, 77% of employees were in technical positions as of April 2011. These included 804 engineers who comprised 52% of the JAXA workforce, along with 251 researchers and 142 education specialists. The remaining 350 JAXA employees worked in administration.
2011 – Japanese Space Industry Employment – Snapshot
According to the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies (SJAC), Japanese private-sector space employment has averaged 6,380 jobs over the past decade. The number of Japanese private-sector space jobs was highest in FY 2001, at 6,871 jobs, and has oscillated up or down from the ten-year average by no more than 8% in each of the following years, with the exception of FY 2008.
2011 – European Space Agency Employment – Snapshot
As of June 2011, the European Space Agency (ESA) directly employed 2,251 people, and another 2,000 people worked on-site as contractors. More than half of ESA’s employees were engineers and an additional 138 were astronauts and scientists. The remaining 913 employees, comprising about 41% of the total ESA workforce, held administrative or managerial roles.
Workforce: Workforce and Education – TSR 2011
2010 – U.S. Space Industry Employment – Snapshot
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which regularly surveys local, state, and national workforce trends across the entire range of U.S. economic activity, offers the broadest source of U.S. space industry workforce data. Data from the six space-related industry sectors shown in Exhibit 4c forms the basis for a detailed assessment of U.S. space employment and salary trends.
2010 – European Space Industry Employment – Snapshot
he number of European space workers counted has expanded by 20% over five years, from 28,584 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees at the end of 2005 to 34,334 FTE employees in 2010. While some of the changes in European space workforce by sector reflected in Exhibit 4l are attributable to Eurospace methodology changes, they also underscore the shifting composition of the European space workforce.