From Dr. Valtorta:
Today's lead story in the Business section of the State is about GM's plan to hire "up to" 10,000 software developers and other IT professionals in the next 3-5 years ("GM to bring computer technology in-house"). This is an Associated Press article by Tom Krisher, bylined Detroit. It is very well written. For comparison, the expected number of jobs in mechanical engineering nationwide for the same period is about the same (cf. BLS Report).
Dr. Buell adds:
10000 jobs over four years (averaging 3 to 5) is 2500 per year. That represents 6.25% of the total estimated production of new graduates, if these were all to be new graduates.
I like this quote from the article:
Experts say it’s also the start of a trend as manufacturers realize that software is among the few things that will set them apart from competitors.
When manufacturing is entirely done by 'robots' (CNC machines, 3D printers, actual robots, etc), then the only thing left for us to do is tell the machines what to do, which is the definition of software: that which tells the machine what to do.