The other week at a concert downtown I was talking with the opera professor friend of a (Russian) writer friend I sometimes catch music with, and I mentioned to him that I was finishing dissertation but not pursuing any academic jobs because the sector was "unstable" and it just didn't make sense any more.
"Yes," he was like, "The sector is very unstable."
He didn't elaborate, but my hunch is that he meant in terms of state budget cuts, liquidation of quality jobs to gigwork, and the amount of competition for every single job out there.
It's weird to think that I've been set on a path forever and have done everything I've needed to do to set myself up for jobs, but when you take a step back and look at the big picture, attempting to pursue this path is just too uncertain for someone with nothing to fall back on, and the consequences too severe and worsening for every year I couldn't get good employment...
That's in addition to the fact that a lot of departments and positions are being closed right now, and there's growing indications that tenured profs are getting busted with salary and forced into teaching higher amounts of classes, since they're sheeply people with low job mobility who are captive to admin.
Plus, a significant minority of millennials are assholes, and I have better things to do with my time.
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