I've been doing some research about the employment outlook for history PhD's in America and the numbers are troubling. Most of the article and data I have found suggest that approximately 45-55% of persons with a PhD in history do not find a job in their field. Currently I am finishing up my Master of Arts teaching degree and considering applying for a PhD program (although I would likely be required to do an accelerated master PhD combination program), but obviously the numbers have me second guessing that decision. My graduating GPA is going to be about a 3.85-3.9 so I know my grades wont be an issue with admission, although i'd still have to take the subject specific GRE and normal writing portions of the application. I'm curious about Askhistorians has for opinions, insights, etc on this situations. Any advise or information would be greatly appreciated.
The numbers suggest that approximately 50% of people who received a PhD in the past 10 years do not have a tenure track job. An additional 25% have non TT jobs in academia.
Whether or not you consider this good or bad is relative. It's certainly substantially better than employment rates in other parts of academia. It's a pretty shitty employment rate for 5+ years of school.
I don't know what else there is to say on the subject.