Last month, we looked at new physics PhD employment by U.S. citizenship. This month we will examine the data by employment sector. We classify positions into four broad employment sectors: Academic, Private, Government, and Other. Overall, almost half of new physics PhDs accept positions in the academic sector.
Only one potentially permanent position in six is in the academic sector; almost three-fourths are in the private sector. Postdocs and temporary positions are mostly in the academic sector. About one postdoc in five is in the government sector; this is because many of the postdocs are at national labs.
Next month we will look at how closely related the positions and one’s dissertation are.
Susan White is the Interim Director of the Statistical Research Center (SRC) at the American Institute of Physics. She can be reached at swhite@aip.org. All the reports from the SRC are available at www.aip.org/statistics.