Regardless of people's positions on working with PhDs, the article falls flat in explaining how employers are "hung up on hiring PhDs" based on some low-level e

Regardless of people's positions on working with PhDs, the article falls flat in explaining how employers are "hung up on hiring PhDs" based on some low-level exploratory analysis. For example, the article's graph of "PhD Proliferation" shows a 20k increase of PhDs from 1970s-2010s.... but that is a fairly unremarkable presentation to make on its own when the US population has increased 100M people from 1970 to 2010: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ How is the graduate education population different from 1970s to 2010s? What percentage of college students go on to get PhDs? Is the PhD per capita lower or higher today than it was back then? What is the PhD breakdown by field over time? What other factors affect this? Also, my hypothesis is that employers hire PhDs for their particular research experience and thesis topic relevant to their business; not just because someone has a PhD in a technical field. For example, a hedge fund is probably more likely to hire a PhD quant analyst with a research speciality in econometrics vs. autonomous driving. Therefore, not all PhDs are equal when it comes to hiring because the demand varies. Further, the author says "Master’s or even bachelor’s degree holders are often highly talented, and many can learn Ph.D.-level research skills on the job as they go." While it may be true, it's not the point. PhDs are hired not just for research, but also analysis and insight. Why would an employer pay a PhD more money than a pure researcher unless they are getting something else out of it? Nothing says someone needs a PhD to be able to research, but there's a difference between knowing a skill and having the capacity to learn a skill over time, which is the distinction in hiring.