DOES AIP REPORT PERPETUATE THE “MYTH” OF A PHYSICIST SHORTAGE?
The American Institute of Physics has been publishing an annual Graduate Student Survey for thirty years, charting the ups and downs in employment prospects of new physicists. Important but noncontroversial work–until now. Members of the Young Scientists Network, a sort of support group for physics post-docs having trouble finding permanent positions, are furious over the first page in this year’s report. The sunny tone of the analysis seems to have riled them more than doubts about the numbers. The very first sentence is a cheerful comment on the ability of physicists to solve all sorts of problems; “Hence,” the authors assert in the next sentence, “a sustaining demand for physicists need not be questioned.” The authors go on to suggest that a steep decline in the number of new physicists taking permanent positions is a matter of choice rather than availability. Some not-so-young- anymore physicists in their third or fourth post-doc disagree. 2. WAS NSF FORECAST OF SCIENTIST SHORTAGE
