I really didn't need the NYT to point this out to me...

PhDs are having trouble finding work- I didn't need the NYT to tell me so seeing as folks I thought would be shoe ins for tenure track jobs at hoity toity places are either jobless or stuck in one year jobs at awful schools. Its always rough, I don't think anyone goes into a PhD program thinking that they'll find a job no problem afterward. Even in the sciences, though they don't talk about that in the article. But its bad right now. They mention that professors who might have retired aren't retiring because their 401k's tanked (I know of at least two of these in my own department... so yeah). Which means that jobs that might have opened up aren't. I like this simile from the article: “This is a year of no jobs,” said Catherine Stimpson, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University. Ph.D.s are stacked up, she said, “like planes hovering over La Guardia.”

I wasn't convinced I wanted to head into academia, but I may not have the option at this point... and I don't like that a bit.