What percentage of psychology degree holders are employed?

In 2013, there were 2.5 million people in the labor force with psychology as their highest degree:

1.4 million had a bachelor's, 456,000 had a master's, 140,000 had a doctoral and 45,000 had a professional degree in psychology.¹ Most of these people were employed full time.² Those with the highest degrees had the highest rate of employment—about 99 percent of psychology doctorates or professional degree holders in the labor force were employed on a full- or part-time basis.³

By Peggy Christidis, PhD, Luona Lin, MPP, and Karen Stamm, PhD

¹National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2013). National Survey of College Graduates Public Use Microdata File and Codebook. Retrieved from https://sestat.nsf.gov/datadownloadopens in new window. Although PhDs and PsyDs are both doctoral-level degrees, the National Science Foundation codes psychology PhDs as "doctorates" and PsyDs as "professional degrees."

²"Full-time employment" includes individuals who worked at least 35 hours per week in their principal jobs (jobs they worked the most hours) in a typical week.

³"Part-time employment" includes individuals who worked less than 35 hours per week in their principle jobs in a typical week. "Unemployed" includes those who were not employed but were seeking employment.