Scientists heed call, but few can find jobs

[JFrankParnell]

Came across this a few months ago and thought it might be of interest here. This excerpt was most interesting to me:

Two groups seem to be doing better than other scientists: physicists and physicians. The unemployment rate among those two groups hovers around 1 to 2 percent, according to surveys from NSF and other groups. Physicists end up working in many technical fields -- and some go to Wall Street -- while the demand for doctors continues to climb as the U.S. population grows and ages.

link

 

[StatGuy2000]

I find the excerpt interesting with respect to physicists, because from what I have gathered from the commentary here on Physics Forums, while it may indeed be true that the unemployment rate for physicists may be low, that low figure is masked by the number of PhD-level physicists who are working outside of their field. In terms of landing an academic posting (at least as far as the US is concerned), the situation is probably as grim for physicists as it is for other scientists as quoted in the online article.

As an aside, I find it interesting that there is no mention about mathematicians or statisticians in this article.

 

[gravenewworld]

I wouldn't doubt the pain of PhD chemists at all. 38% employment rate for new chemistry Phds is probably high due to the fact that it was an ACS survey (they probably include temp jobs that have almost 0 job security and low paying post docs as being "employed"). Choose wisely and always have a backup plan. If I can't find a job after my studies, I'll probably open up a bakery.

 

[chill_factor]

I wouldn't doubt the pain of PhD chemists at all. 38% employment rate for new chemistry Phds is probably high due to the fact that it was an ACS survey (they probably include temp jobs that have almost 0 job security and low paying post docs as being "employed"). Choose wisely and always have a backup plan. If I can't find a job after my studies, I'll probably open up a bakery.

that may be because most chem graduates are in bio/organic instead of analytical/physical.