Posted on an APA clinical psychology listserv

[elite1]

This was recently posted by a person in Canada on the APA early career psychologists forum:

Just my two cents. I wonder whether there is an oversaturation of psychologists in the US now given all of the professional programs and PsyD programs poping up? In Canada (where I'm from) there are only the traditional university based clinical programs with very few graduates. In fact I'm graduating from the largest (I think) graduate psychology program in Canada (with almost 300 psychology graduate students) and we only graduate between 7 and 15 psychologists a year. I just looked at some of those average psychology salaries in the US and was quite saddened. The lowest paid hospital based jobs that I've seen in clinical psychology in Ontario pay $75,000 per year for psychologist during their supervised practice post-doc year. This year I was paid $85,000 working full time in a neurology department in a hospital and I haven't even defended my Ph.D yet. The other psychologist that I work with make well over $100,000. Of course, Canada and the US are different! as we pay a
heck of a lot of taxes (about 40-50% or so in this salary range) here in Canada. But I wonder if supply and demand applies here as well.

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[JockNerd]

Relatedly, psych profs in Canada make more too. You can check out the apa data for exact numbers, but it was something like ~10k across the board higher. I think it's related; if practice/consulting is more lucrative, universities will pay more to attract good faculty. If there are hundreds of grads being pumped out of programs, then universities can give adjuncts $5k and be thanked for it.

Keep in mind we pay a lot more tax than you guys, though. Not enough to cancel out that difference, but more.

I'm doing my PhD in the states, but I fully intend on moving back to Canada for internship and my eventual faculty position.

 

[RayneeDeigh]

I think the poster of that message is maybe overestimating the starting salaries in Canada. They're probably better (in general ALL jobs pay better in Canada) but we also pay more in terms of groceries, restaurants, general products, yadda yadda yadda. I do think certain areas of the US are getting saturated with shrinks these days, but I think that just relates to popular areas to live and fields to practice in.

What worries me more (being that I'm in forensics) are the people who would otherwise have no interest in forensics but want to do it because forensic assessment can be quite lucrative. That's the only kind of saturation I'm worried about.

 

[Ollie123]

Without getting into the tons of other factors that go into US versus Canadian job markets, I think it would be pretty tough to argue that those schools are NOT affecting the US job market for psychologists. Laws of supply and demand and all that. At least that's true for clinical practice, I don't have a strong sense of how many of their graduates even apply for academic positions.

The issue is to what degree is it a problem. Job market economics is a vastly different animal from consumer economics because there's far more emotion, time, etc. involved in employment than in say....buying a table.

I grew up with Canada just a stone's throw away, so I wouldn't be opposed to moving there if I happened to get a faculty job there. Given the difference in number of research-focused universities though, its probably unlikely just for that reason.

 

[bigdodge53]

I can't help but wonder if the difference in population between the US and Canada may not be a driving force in the difference in job markets.