Over the past decade, there has been a clear and unprecedented exodus of young life scientists from academia and into lucrative industry jobs. But new data provide evidence that this trend is slowing, at least for now.
The latest numbers from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, an annual National Science Foundation census of freshly minted Ph.D. graduates, show that 61.6% of biomedical scientists who had a job lined up were bound for industry in 2023. That’s a sizable dip from 66.5% in 2022, breaking a decade-long trend of nearly continuous annual increases in the share of graduates headed for the private sector.
As the proportion of industry-bound researchers dipped in 2023, the percentage of graduates going into academic jobs increased from 18.8% in 2022 to 22.1%. But more granular data provided by NSF showed that, in 2023, about 75% of these jobs were non-tenure track positions, compared to 70.6% in 2022 and 66% in 2021. That trend suggests that among Ph.D. graduates going into academic work, positions such as adjunct professorships and staff scientist roles are becoming more common. Meanwhile, prized posts as lab leaders remain few and far between.
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