> Not all of science is interesting to the private sector.More helplessness.
My research area is famously hard to fund even within academia, so I substantially changed the way that I frame my research and the type of work I was proposing. I still do the most important bits of pushing advances in my field, but there's a lot of auxiliary work that has immediate value as well.
It's less fun, it's CERTAINLY more humbling, and it's a lot more labor. But it provides both short-term and long-term value.
BTW: if you want to do work no one will fund, that's fine. Just at least acknowledge that your largest funding source is the massively under-paid labor of 20-35 year olds.
> Thats around the starting salary of school teachers and many other professions.
Your post-docs are >= 28, have graduate degrees, and have several years of research experience. Also, "teachers and many other professions" almost NEVER sign fixed term contracts that require them to move all over the country/world.
BTW, what is your university's pension plan like? Many teachers have great pension plans (that actually make sense to use since they have jobs that last more than 2-3 years). If comparing to industry, what's your 401K match and stock purchase program?
You can't even beat the working conditions and wages that mediocre 22 year olds can get right out of college in a famously under-compensated field. "My PhD employees would be substantially better off as secondary school teachers" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.