Where have all the post docs gone?

There are more PhD students in the sciences than ever before, and the numbers are growing fast. On one side of the coin, this is an encouraging sign that, as a society, we are pushing out innovators in greater numbers. The other side of that coin is not so encouraging. The more PhDs coming through the ranks means that there will be more unemployed and underutilised scientists. Right now less than 3 out of 10 PhD students will be employed at a research organisation 5 years after graduation. Of concern is that the PhD process is heavily weighted towards obtaining an academic position. This means that the academic training these students are receiving will not be sufficient on its own to prepare them for the workforce.

So why won't these PhD students find employment in academia? Let's look at the science system in New Zealand.

• Cost of including a PhD student in a grant: $32,000 p.a.
• Cost of including a Post-doc in a grant: $150,000 p.a. (incl. full overheads)
• The increase of tenured academic positions is far less than the increase in post-docs, which is again far less than the increase in total PhD students entering the science system.
• Here is an interesting presentation by Trevor D. McKee
  

It is easy to see that funding for capability building in sciences is geared towards the student, but not the career advancement. It is simply uneconomical to include post-docs in grant applications, and funding agencies are less inclined to pay for research that could be done more efficiently with 5 PhD students rather than a single post-doc. Moreover, if a person is fortunate enough to obtain a post-doc position, it is unlikely that they will find a career in academia.

So, a PhD student in NZ who wishes to continue down the path of academia is forced to do one of two things:

1. go overseas; or
2. change careers

Going overseas is difficult because most PhD students will finish in their late 20's or early 30's at which time they have a family and a settled lifestyle. Changing careers is even more difficult since most of a PhD student's training is limited in scope and primarily applicable to academic careers.

So what's a PhD student to do?
The answer to this is simple: prepare for a career outside of academia by upskilling during your studentship. This may take various forms, but examples may include legal or business training, communications/journalism, entrepreneurship, or government/policy studies. By combining the skills from research with other fundamental skills, PhD students will stand out amongst a crowd and be much more marketable; perhaps they will like the career outside of the lab even more!