Not long ago, more than 2,400 postdoctoral and staff members of the University of Washington went on strike on the grounds that wages were too low.

Recently, according to a report on the "Nature" website, American postdoctoral fellows once again issued a warning to the National Institutes of Health (NIH): When they want to start a family, they often feel underpaid and overworked!

According to the American Postdoctoral Association, there are about 70,000 postdocs in the United States, and the income gap is wide, with a median annual salary of $49,000. "In the biological, biomedical, and health sciences, the median first-year salary for a postdoc in industry is about $90,000," said Shelley Berger, co-chair of the NIH task force and an epigenetics researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. There is a big gap between wages compared with those in industry.

The number of postdocs is declining

Relevant data show that from 2020 to 2022, the number of postdoctoral fellows funded by NIH will drop by 9.5%. From 2020 to 2021, the number of postdocs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in science and health decreased by 4.1% and 3.8%, respectively.

In fact, the decline in the number of postdocs is not unique to the United States. According to statistics, after Brexit, the number of postdoctoral fellows from the EU dropped from 12,495 in 2019 to 12,185 in 2020.

In 2022, Peter Coveney, a chemist and computational scientist from University College London, plans to recruit a postdoctoral fellow in advanced computing, but he has been unable to find qualified candidates in all aspects. "I am very worried about what to do in the long run. Although I am not desperate now, it may not be far from that day." Coveney said that if people cannot be recruited quickly, the project cannot be completed. Therefore, he had to repost the recruitment information.

Coveney isn't the only PI who can't find a postdoc. PIs in the UK, EU and elsewhere say the sudden drop in applications for postdocs could signal a radical shift in the research labor market. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t complain about how hard it is to recruit postdocs,” says Florian Markowetz, a PI who studies cancer at the University of Cambridge, UK.

“A lot of PhDs and postdocs want to leave academia because they don’t feel valued,” says Jonny Coates, a postdoctoral fellow in immunology at Queen Mary University of London, UK. It makes us feel like people in the system don't recognize our worth."

Income is also an important aspect, Coates said. In the UK, for example, first-year salaries for postdocs funded by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) are around £34,400. In Germany, EMBL-funded postdoctoral fellows earn more than 42,200 euros in their first year. According to a report released by the biotechnology media in 2020, this level is much lower than the 50,000-70,000 euros that doctoral students are expected to get when they go to the industry. In the U.S., a National Research Service Award (NRSA)-funded postdoc earns $54,840 in the first year, less than half of what a life sciences postdoc earns in industry.

Salary is the main barrier to starting a family

In November 2022, NIH established the Postdoctoral Training Working Group with the goal of investigating how to improve postdoctoral training in the United States. The working group issued a call for information, asking all sectors of society to discuss the reasons and solutions for the reduction of postdoctoral personnel. In the end, it received a total of 3,300 comments, 90% of which related to salary and benefits.

"With these comments, we can see that there is a strong desire to start a family during postdocs, but the conflict between salary and workload is a serious barrier," said Tara Schwetz, NIH vice president and co-chair of the task force.

Schwetz points out that postdocs in the same lab can also vary widely in earnings, depending on how they are hired, and can cause resentment among colleagues.

NRSA-funded postdocs receive a childcare stipend of $2,500 per year. This benefit is not provided by other funding, but it is still only enough to cover childcare costs for a few months.

Frankie Heyward, president of the National Black Postdoctoral Association, said the financial burden of raising children can be a big reason for people on postdoc salaries to leave academia for industry.

U.S. attractiveness to international scholars plummets

For the past 50 years, the United States has been the destination of choice for international researchers pursuing doctoral or postdoctoral studies.

Since the 1960s, American foreign policy has attracted a large number of foreign scholars to study. This group reached its peak in 2016, including undergraduates and graduate students, with more than 1 million students studying in the United States that year.

Subsequently, the number of international students in the United States began to slowly decline. According to statistics from international educational institutions, the number of graduate students in the United States fell by 1.3% in 2018 to 377,943. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the number of graduate students decreased by 12.1%. During the same period, the number of international scholars in the United States, especially postdocs and visiting scholars, plummeted by 31%, from 123,508 to 85,528.

In 2021, 53 percent of U.S. postdocs will come from abroad, according to a 2022 survey by the National Postdoctoral Association. 73% of international postdocs reported that their international status had a negative impact on their lives. For example, international postdocs are not eligible for the NRSA program.

"International postdocs are very helpless. They can't solve the visa problem, so they have to entrust private lawyers to deal with it." Heyward said.

At the same time, people in the comments also said that sexual harassment, cultural barriers and lack of support in academia all made the United States an unattractive choice.

In 2022, "Nature" magazine interviewed five postdoctoral fellows. They pointed out the reasons why they did not work in the United States, including the decision to ban women from abortion in many states, the frequent occurrence of shootings, the high cost of health care and racism.

“Postdoc salaries, benefits, and workloads have to change,” Schwetz added. “We have a consensus, but it means fewer postdocs overall because resources are limited.”

The working group will propose several principles in December, including that postdoc living expenses should be adjusted regularly; enjoy employee-level treatment; create a safe, fair, inclusive and accessible work environment; and establish limited postdoc deadlines to replace those that hinder their professional development. Renewal; expansion of funding mechanisms, etc.

Heyward said he is optimistic that the issue of postdoc salaries will be properly resolved, but has not yet seen specifics.