CRA Taulbee Trends: Early Employment of Ph.D.s
by Jay Vegso

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This article concerns the employment of computer science and computer engineering doctorates in the United States and Canada in the first year after they received their degrees.

The Taulbee Survey, which is conducted each Fall, asks for the employment status of those who received Ph.D. degrees during the previous academic year (AY). Due to changes in the survey, including the addition of new employment categories, it is difficult to trace employment trends before AY1984/1985. 

Table 1 shows the results from AY1984/1985 onward as percentiles, since these are more useful for tracking trends than raw numbers. These figures exclude the approximately 15 to 20 percent of doctorates whose employment status were unknown each year, as well as those who were listed as unemployed (who average to only 1 percent). 

Figure 1 illustrates the proportion of doctorates who were employed outside of academia (i.e., if self-employed, or in industry or government), academia (i.e., in Ph.D. and non-Ph.D.-granting CS/CE departments, as well as in non-CS/CE departments), and outside North America. Between 1985 and 1990, more doctorates worked in academia (50%) than outside it (40%). After this, however, employment in industry dominated, rising to nearly 60% in 1997. Since 2001, however, there have been two dramatic reversals. Between 2001 and 2003, the share of doctorates going into academia jumped from 44% to 64%, with a concomitant drop in the share working in industry from 52% to 32%. As the fortunes of the IT industry recovered, so did doctoral employment in the sector. By 2007, industry claimed 57% of doctorates while academia had slipped to 32%. During all of this, the share of doctorates working outside the US and Canada varied between 10% and 18% from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, and then dropped to about 5% until 2004. Since then, the portion of recent doctorate recipients working abroad has been 10% and above.

Table 1. Employment of New Ph.D. Recipients
Ph.D Received in Academic Year	Ph.D.-Granting CS/CE Dept.	Non-Ph.D.-Granting CS/CE Dept.	Non-CS/CE Dept.	Industry	Government	Self-Employed	Outside U.S./Canada
1984/1985	36%	10%	4%	34%	4%	2%	10%
1985/1986	39%	7%	3%	37%	5%	1%	9%
1986/1987	39%	9%	4%	37%	4%	1%	8%
1987/1988	40%	9%	3%	33%	4%	0%	11%
1988/1989	39%	10%	4%	34%	4%	1%	9%
1989/1990	30%	11%	3%	38%	3%	2%	13%
1990/1991	29%	10%	2%	42%	3%	2%	13%
1991/1992	25%	9%	3%	41%	4%	2%	16%
1992/1993	26%	12%	4%	37%	4%	2%	15%
1993/1994	24%	9%	3%	38%	4%	2%	18%
1994/1995	26%	8%	1%	41%	5%	2%	16%
1995/1996	31%	3%	2%	49%	3%	2%	9%
1996/1997	30%	4%	2%	54%	3%	2%	5%
1997/1998	35%	3%	1%	50%	4%	2%	5%
1998/1999	38%	3%	0%	49%	2%	3%	3%
1999/2000	38%	3%	1%	50%	3%	1%	4%
2000/2001	39%	4%	0%	49%	2%	1%	4%
2001/2002	52%	1%	1%	39%	3%	0%	5%
2002/2003	58%	4%	1%	29%	2%	1%	4%
2003/2004	56%	4%	0%	30%	3%	1%	5%
2004/2005	35%	7%	2%	41%	3%	1%	12%
2005/2006	26%	5%	1%	50%	3%	1%	13%
2006/2007	26%	5%	2%	54%	3%	1%	10%

 

[Last updated June 12, 2008]

 

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