US physics PhD holders are increasingly taking postdoc jobs.
The recession seems to have increased the proportion of US physics PhD holders who are taking postdoc jobs rather than waiting for permanent positions, says a brief released on 17 January by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in College Park, Maryland. Physics PhDs: One Year Later, which is based on survey data, reports that 59% of people who earned physics PhDs in the United States in 2009 and 2010 and remained in the country took postdocs within a year. Of those, 13% did so because they could not find permanent work, compared with 7% from the classes of 2007 and 2008, according to AIP data. Similarly, 44% of physics PhD holders who took temporary positions had failed to find a suitable permanent job, up from 42% from the classes of 2007 and 2008.
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Permanent jobs scarce. Nature 493, 711 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7434-711c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7434-711c