Some key facts first:

From 1990 to 2010, overall U.S. college graduation levels grew about 50 percent.

During that same time frame, the number of engineering graduates in the United States has flat lined at around 120,000 each year.

By contrast, universities in India and China are graduating about 1 million engineers annually.

Without a doubt, this gap impacts our ability to continue leading the world in science and innovation and retain high-tech, globally competitive jobs.

Yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Intel President Paul Otellini joined with business leaders and the Deans of Engineering schools in Portland, Oregon to discuss America’s need for engineers as part of a regional Listening and Action session hosted by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The panelists shared their thoughts on how the private and public sectors can help the United States graduate more engineers and answered questions from audience members, including local small business owners and educators.

Yesterday, the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness announced that 45 industry leaders, including Boeing, DuPont, AT&T and Facebook, have committed to doubling engineering internships at their companies in 2012, strengthening the skills and talent of our students with hands-on, technical opportunities.

As Secretary Chu noted, “The President cares very deeply about getting Americans back to work, number one. He cares very deeply about those things in America that we can nurture that not only get people back to work immediately but form the basis of an enduring prosperity. You look in history and say, what was fueling the semiconductor, computer and internet revolutions, the biotech revolutions, the aerospace – all of those things. It goes back a lot to science and engineering education – that’s one of our core strengths in the United States.”

The commitments made yesterday, which will create about 6,300 new opportunities for engineering students, support the Job Council’s goal to graduate 10,000 more engineering students from U.S. colleges and universities each year.