Yesterday Nature published a feature article asking "Has the great resignation hit academia?" The article mostly focuses on experiences of researchers in the humanities and life sciences, but they are equally relevant to physics. Some snippets:
"Grievances include a lack of support, increased workloads, ..., and salaries that have not kept up with cost of living."
Unofficially, it seems that the salaries of fresh postdocs in Singapore have not increased significantly since 2015, despite rising costs of living, especially rent. Frustratingly, professors seem to be powerless to address this due to postdoc salaries being fixed by upper management or funding agency rules. Consequently it is very hard to attract and retain junior researchers.
"A 2018 study predicted that higher education would lose half to two-thirds of its academic workforce to retirement, career burnout or job dissatisfaction within five years."
"By May 2021, one in five academic jobs in Australia had been cut."
The sacking of Australian research staff is particularly galling given that upper management and administration seem to be doing better than ever. With the boom in quantum technologies many Australian researchers are realizing they can keep doing the same physics under much better working conditions in spin-off companies including Q-CTRL, Quantum Brilliance, Nomad Atomics, and Diraq.
No comments:
Post a Comment