Latest Employment Data for Physicists and Related Scientists

These reports highlight the qualitative changes in the initial employment of recent degree recipients. They document the salaries earned by experienced physicists across employment sectors and degree levels, the size of the physics academic workforce as well as the availability of faculty openings and profiles of new hires.

Earth and Space Science PhDs, Class of 2003
Sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and American Geological Institute (AGI), this report documents initial employment patterns, starting salaries, and demographic characteristics for recent PhD graduates in the geosciences.

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2004 Physics & Astronomy Academic Workforce
This is the latest in a series of biennial reports on the number of faculty, turnover, retirements, and recruitments at physics degree-granting departments. The number of faculty positions in physics has increased by about 10% since 1994. However, more positions are being filled with part-time and temporary faculty than ten years ago. The number of minority faculty members increased significantly at physics departments, and new female faculty were hired at rates consistent with degree production in the past. This report also provides data on the relationship between the number of full-time equivalent faculty and the number of bachelor's degrees awarded. For the first time, this report contains data on stand-alone astronomy departments.

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Initial Employment Report: Physics and Astronomy Degree Recipients of 2002 & 2003
This report describes the initial employment and educational paths pursued by physics and astronomy degree recipients at the bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD levels. The report includes starting salaries, primary work activities, ratings of professional challenge and other aspects of initial employment. The report also describes the fields of study and types of support for physics degree recipients who continued their education.

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Who's Hiring Physics Bachelors?
A state by state listing of many of the companies that hired new physics bachelors from the classes of 2002, 2003, and 2004.

2004 Salary Data
Overall trends and salaries for physicists and related scientists.

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Career Paths for Physicists with PhD's from the US
Every two years, the National Science Foundation resurveys a panel of Doctorate holders, selected to represent all working age recipients of science, engineering and health PhD's from US universities. These data provide a unique snapshot of career developments at all stages of physicists' working lives. The current brief report is a first look at what this dataset offers.

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Physics Bachelors with Master's Degrees
This report documents the employment patterns of those who earned physics bachelor's degrees in the early 1990s, earned master's degrees in a variety of fields, and were working five to eight years later. Master's degree fields, reasons for attending graduate school, and preparedness for graduate school are all discussed. Also documented are employment fields, salaries, knowledge and skills used on the job, and evaluation of undergraduate physics education.

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The Early Careers of Physics Bachelors
An examination of the employment patterns of people with no degrees other than physics bachelor's degrees, five to eight years after graduation. The report includes common job activities and skills used on the job. It also describes these physics bachelors' evaluations of how well physics education prepared them for careers.

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2004 Industrial Salary Summary
This article appeared in The Industrial Physicist. It summarizes the salary and employment data on physicists and related scientists working in the private sector.

2004 Society Profile
A collection of data tables that describes the characteristics of the membership of the 10 AIP Member Societies

2002 Society Profile
A collection of data tables that describes the characteristics of the membership of the 10 AIP Member Societies

State-level Salaries
Contact information for the 35 states that publish salary information on their technical work force.

Enrollments and Faculty in Physics
This talk was given at the Department Chairs conference convened by APS and AAPT on June 7-9, 2002. It provides a statistical overview of the current and historic trends in physics enrollments from high school through to the PhD, and includes data on physics faculty in universities and 4-year colleges, including their numbers and age, as well as characteristics of new faculty hired during 2000