80% of Life Science PhDs end up completely unemployed or in low-paying postdoc training positions, which the government does not count as employment. (Life sciences includes all the pharma researchers etc)
60% of ALL PhDs end up unemployed or in low-paying postdoc positions. (this rate is actually only slightly lower for PhDs in tech, so Materials/engineering/physics/CS/Math are around 40-50% depending on institution).
I am a PhD candidate in STEM with about 7 years of programming, software engineering, and research under my belt. I'm currently doing AI and Machine Learning stuff, have been for a year or two. I have roughly $60,000 in student loans, due to me losing my job a couple of times and now being in school for ~7 years (4 more to go, at least, hoorayyyy).
I have been applying to jobs for a year now in SE/Tech/ML (I'm doing a PhD in ML and closely related subjects). I've gotten 1 offer out of ~1100 applications, which fell through because of COVID closures last year. Of course everyone always says the boomer stuff like “you're so smart, I'm sure you'll get a job” and “everyone is desperate for skilled workers these days” etc., etc.
Now, I do in fact have the requisite skills, but here's the thing, here's the thing that none of them will even believe and most don't understand:
I can't take a job that pays too low, or I risk tanking my future/credit/failing to afford cost of living etc. I can't get a job in tech though. Not entry level, I'm “too qualified”. Not high level, I “have no experience”. I've submitted roughly 1100 applications in the past year and have just gotten hundreds of automated “no” responses. I don't have connections and don't have anywhere to go. It's really driven me to a point of serious despair, like I have been a straight A grad student for years now and work in the “super high paid” field and yet… and yet no one wants to hire me?
Then I did some digging. This is normal. The memes about PhDs not getting jobs are true. No one will hire you without “X” years of experience doing “Y” but if it's for research it doesn't count. If it isn't at a company, it doesn't count. They would rather a talented outsider starve and hire internally/nepotistically someone incompetent. That's the mindset. It's all a scam. So to those people in this sub who say “your skills are probably useless go learn something else” or some other capitalist bull***t screed, just keep this in mind:
80% of Life Science PhDs end up completely unemployed or in low-paying postdoc training positions, which the government does not count as employment.
60% of ALL PhDs end up unemployed or in low-paying postdoc positions.