jobs

Bonnie Blackwell, (BONN@NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA)
Fri, 3 Jun 1994 09:09:57 -0500

For those of you in the US, it might make you feel a bit better to know
that the situation in canada is not any better and in many fields much
worse than that described in US anthrop. As a branch plant
economy, we do not have as many failsafes in our system for people
wwith PhD's who do not find academic jobs. For social scientists
there are the various governments, but they have been cutting back
over the last few years, leaving numerous civil and public servants
now unemployed in addition to the academic hopefuls. For the more
scientific types, there may be work in some research institutes,
but they have been severely reduced in funding too, and have been
laying off. Some companies (but very few compared to US stats)
do employ scientists in research, but our tax structure and the
branch plant ecomony means they are very few in number.

what's really disturbing about all this is that it costs about
$250,000 to educate a PhD social scientist, and up to $1,000,000
for a PhD scientist. Yet many are unemployed contributing little
to society. Worse yet, many have gone to other countries (notably
the US) to let them benefit from our stupidity.

i compare that with britain, where my cousin who is a PhD biochemist.
when he finished his PhD, he was guaranteed a 2 year post-doctoral
fellowship from the government (at least as i understand his explanation).
although their economy is as shot as ours, he has never been unemployed
nor are any of his cronies from university days (including non
biochemists).

i suspect that part of the reason the situation is so bad in canada
and the us, is that neither country puts nearly as much of its gnp into
education/research/development. germany and japan, sweden and many
other 1st world countries reinvest 5-7% of their gnp into E R&D,
while canada spends about 1% and as i recall the us about 3% (that
figure mayu be very out of date, but that is what it was in about
1985).

let's all lobby/cajole/demonstrate/strike for more of the gnp
to be put into E R&D, then maybe we would not be having this
discusision at all.
bonn@nickel.laurentian.ca