Life Science Graduates Face Daunting Labor Market

In my position as CEO of a firm employing over 80,000 engineers, I can testify that most were excellent engineers. But the factor that most distinguished those who advanced in the organization was the ability to think broadly and read and write clearly.(Norman Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin) Biology graduate students have a dizzying array of options after completing their degree, including settling on an initial career path. Although many young biologists hope to make these decisions on the basis of personal preference, changing labor market conditions are likely to influence the decision. The employment prospects for biologists have changed significantly in recent decades. Until the early 1970s, a person with a doctorate in biology had a good chance of being hired in academia; nearly 70 percent of new PhDs who had a job lined up at graduation went to work in academia. Now, fewer than half of graduates with definitive postdegree plans find employment in academia, according to the federally sponsored Survey on Earned Doctorates. One driver of that precipitous drop was the saturation of the academic labor market as the number of trainees increased. The Great Recession has taken a toll on employment prospects for graduates. The percentage of recent life science doctoral degree graduates with definite job plans for after graduation fell to its lowest level in more than two decades in 2011. That year, only one in five graduates had secured employment, a r...
Source: Washington Watch - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news