Holders of computer science PhDs are increasingly going into industry and postdoc jobs rather than tenured academia.
A growing proportion of US computer-science PhD holders are pursuing postdoctoral research or industry rather than tenured academia, says a report by the Computing Research Association (CRA) in Washington DC. The Role of PostDocs in Computer Science, out earlier this year, says that the number of new doctorates who were hired for tenure-track posts fell by one-third from 2004 to 2009, yet that hired by industry tripled. Postdoc appointments grew three-fold between 2001 and 2009. The report asks whether the field will come to resemble the life sciences, with researchers doing several postdocs before securing a permanent academic job.
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Postdoc prevalence rises. Nature 472, 506 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7344-506d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7344-506d