What is the likelihood of a PhD-holder from the USA remaining unemployed?

Question

In our country (Bangladesh), a PhD from the US is considered as a pinnacle of achievement in one's life. But, in some of my discussions in one of my previous questions I learnt that even a PhD from a US university is not enough to secure a job.

My question is: are there any statistics on the rate of employment amongst PhD graduates trained in the US?

Having a PhD is not a life-long guarantee to employment (and it shouldn't be). At best, a PhD is a key to open some doors in life that would otherwise be locked. It enables you to enter rooms that others cannot. Once inside the room, it's up to you to do good work, as is always required. — Marc Claesen, Mar 26 '14 at 09:16
@Marc Claesen.....Laughably enough, that is also true for a Bachelor degree. — , Mar 26 '14 at 09:19
It's true for any degree, or any other level of certification. I don't see what's laughable about that point at all. — Mark Meckes, Mar 26 '14 at 09:32
Indeed, with a bachelor degree you just have access to different rooms. If you feel the "good work" required in a PhD-locked room fits your ambitions and abilities a lot better than the one required in a bachelor-locked room, then it's worth getting a PhD. But you should not expect to be able to rest your whole life just because you work really hard for a few years. — Ri49, Mar 26 '14 at 09:56
@Ri49 "But you should not expect to be able to rest your whole life just because you work really hard for a few years". Why? In some countries public servants are chosen with (very competitive) public contests and they are not evaluated ever again, some public servants may claim a "temporal disability" (with full or partial pay and no work) and chain several of them in arbitrarily long periods of time. This is also the expected outcome for many "artists" (actors, singers, etc.), prostitutes, royalties and patents holders, investors and many other people. — Trylks, Mar 26 '14 at 10:30
Why is this question on hold as opinion based? According to data collected by the NSF in 2008, of 752,000 US-trained PhD graduates in STEM areas at that time, 651,200 were employed, 75,900 were retired, 13,500 were unemployed by choice, and 11,400 were unemployed and seeking work. The unemployment rate was thus 11,400/651,200 = 1.75%. This compares with a general unemployment rate in the US of 7.3%. Thus a PhD certainly helps secure a job (at least in STEM). — badroit, Mar 27 '14 at 20:25
^^ Could we open the question so I could post this as an answer? I understand that how the question is phrased makes it appear opinion-based, but at it's core it is a very interesting objective question. — badroit, Mar 27 '14 at 20:27
@badroit: Thus a PhD certainly helps secure a job (at least in STEM) It may just be that certain people have personal qualities that let them earn a PhD (intelligence, willingness to work hard), and those personal qualities also make them less likely to be unemployed. — , Mar 28 '14 at 16:58
@BenCrowell, more correctly I could say: having a PhD certainly correlates with being able to secure a job (at least in STEM). — badroit, Mar 28 '14 at 17:34
Someone that is able to remain motivated (with little supervision) for long enough to get a PhD is likely to have enough motivation to find some sort of job. — Ian, Apr 25 '14 at 14:42

badroit · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-28T15:21:50.997

What is the likelihood of a PhD-holder remaining unemployed?

... I learnt that even a PhD from a US university is not enough to secure a job.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) provides a bunch of statistics on where doctoral graduates in STEM areas (Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics) end up working.

This spreadsheet refers to a sampled survey done in 2008, wherein the NSF provide statistics on the employment status of all PhD graduates from STEM areas trained in the U.S.

Across all of their fields, they count 752,000 relevant graduates, of which they estimate that 651,200 were employed at that time (578,700 full-time, 72,400 part-time), 11,400 were unemployed and seeking work, 75,900 were retired, and 13,500 were not seeking work.

An unemployment rate is calculated as:

UR = UE / LF

(UR is Unemployment Rate, UE is number of people UnEmployed, LF is the number of people in the Labour Force [working or seeking work].)

So for the 752,000 U.S. trained PhD graduates considered, the NSF estimated an unemployment rate of 1.7205% in 2008.

This is compared with a U.S. unemployment rate of ~6% in mid-2008.

So to return to your question ...

What is the likelihood of a PhD-holder remaining unemployed?

More than three times lower than the general population (for US-trained STEM PhD holders).

Furthermore, a small percentage of unemployment is inevitable as some percentage of people will always be between jobs for a short time. (Someone more in tune with economics may be able to comment on whether or not 1.72% is close to "full employment", but being unemployed for >1.72% of your career while taking a break between jobs doesn't seem unreasonable.)

A more detailed break-down of the total size of the labour force and the unemployment rate per field follows, so if you're in a STEM area, you can pick whichever field is closest to yours.

#Field                                                    #LF      #UR

All fields                                                662,600  1.7205%

Science                                                   515,200  1.7275%

  Biological/agricultural/environmental life sciences     167,200  1.9139%   
  - Agricultural/food sciences                             17,300  1.7341%
  - Biochemistry/biophysics                                25,700  2.3346%
  - Cell/molecular biology                                 19,700  1.0152%
  - Environmental life sciences                             6,500  1.5385%
  - Microbiology                                           12,300  2.4390%
  - Zoology                                                 9,800  3.0612%
  - Other biological sciences                              76,000  1.9737%

Computer/information sciences                              16,400  1.2195%

Mathematics/statistics                                     30,300  0.9901%

Physical sciences                                         118,200  2.3689%
  - Astronomy/astrophysics                                 >5,000  [Supp.]
  - Chemistry, except biochemistry                         59,600  3.0201%
  - Earth/atmospheric/ocean sciences/other phy. sci.       18,500  1.0811%
  - Physics                                                35,600  2.2472%

Psychology                                                100,500  1.2935%

Social sciences                                            82,700  1.3301%
Economics                                                  22,300  0.4484%
Political sciences                                         19,500  1.0256%
Sociology                                                  14,900  1.3423%
Other social sciences                                      26,000  2.3077%

Engineering                                               118,100  1.7782%
  - Aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering       >5,200  [Supp.]
  - Chemical engineering                                   14,700  2.7211% 
  - Civil engineering                                      10,500  0.9524%
  - Electrical/computer engineering                        33,800  1.1834%
  - Materials/metallurgical engineering                    12,300  2.4390%
  - Mechanical engineering                                 16,400  1.2195%
  - Other engineering                                      25,200  2.3810%

Health                                                     29,200  1.0274%

[Supp.] means suppressed: numbers are too low to preserve anonymity.

Caveats:

The context is 2008, US-trained STEM PhDs. Unemployment started increasing in 2008 with the onset of the subprime morgage crisis.
A PhD is just paperwork. What you do for your PhD is far more important than the degree itself.
Of course simply being employed is not necessarily the same as having the great job that you always wanted, and certainly we cannot infer from these data that doing a PhD is always the best path for everyone to follow their dreams.

What is the likelihood of a PhD-holder from the USA remaining unemployed?

1 Answers1