Employment characteristics of doctoral level computer scientists

A recent report from the National Research Council contains a detailed profile of doctoral level scientists and engineers, as well as doctorates in the humanities [1]. This paper summarizes those portions of the report that pertain to the employment characteristics of Ph.D.'s in computer science, and other Ph.D. scientists and engineers working in computer science. Our purpose is to verify the common folklore concerning employment opportunities in computer science, academic vs. business/industry employment of doctoral level computer scientists, work activities at the doctoral level, and the relative numbers of Ph.D.'s working in the various subdisciplines of computer science.