Information on the 1979 employment activities of 1977 graduates with bachelor's and master's degrees in science and engineering (S/E) fields is presented. Trends in cohort size are analyzed to provide a historical perspective for the survey findings. Factors causing employment levels to be lower than the cohort size as S/E graduates made the transition from school to work are summarized, and the employment patterns of S/E graduates who are employed in S/E jobs and the implications of these patterns are examined. Among the findings are the following: employment in S/E jobs was obtained by about one-half of the bachelor's degree-holders and about three-fourths of the master's degree-holders; employment in part-time and non-S/E jobs occurs among only about one-sixth of the degree-holders in the labor force; while about 9 out of 10 of the engineering and computer science graduates were working in S/E jobs, only about 1 in 5 of the social science degree-holders were so employed; employment opportunities for recent S/E graduates have shifted toward jobs in industry and with the federal government; in general, the S/E utilization rates for men were higher than those for women at both the bachelor's and master's level; most of the differences in utilization rates can be attributed to concentrations of men or women in particular fields (men predominate in engineering and women in the social sciences); R&D activities continue to be the primary work of about one-third of scientists and engineers with recently acquired bachelor's and master's degrees. Salary information is also analyzed. (SW)