Where do freshly minted physics PhDs work? Do they like their jobs? What do they earn? Three reports put out this year by the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics (which publishes Physics Today) surveyed graduates from US institutions from the combined classes of 2013 and 2014 about those and related issues.
A year after receiving their PhDs, some 47% of graduates had moved into postdoctoral positions, continuing a decline; a decade earlier that proportion was 67%. The next largest group, 38%, had potentially permanent positions, the majority of which were in the private sector. Another 10% were in temporary positions, mostly in academia—as lecturers, visiting professors, and the like. The remaining 5% were unemployed. Some 22% of new PhD physicists reported feeling underemployed.
The median starting salary for physics PhDs taking potentially permanent private-sector positions was $99 000; in academia, it was $57 000. The...
