I often meet taxi drivers here who are highly qualified immigrants - scientists, engineers, eonomists, doctors etc. There simply aren't the professional opportunities for them here, or their qualifications aren't recognized.

At one point some years ago my sensitivity grew to the point where I could, after a few minutes, pick a driver as an engineer - sometimes even as either a mechanical or an electrical engineer.

Physics is one of the hardest professions to get work in - you and your colleagues must be the cream of the crop. I heard recently that any given academic opening in the US attracts many hundreds of applicants .. probably the very best is selected, which is good for the profession and for the world generally. But what about all the other highly qualified and capable applicants, who'll end up driving cabs or some other work? No easy answers here - there obviously has to be competition, and equally obviously, there will always be more 'supply' than demand, in the sciences.

Once a German exchange Physics student told me as a joke, that the last exam to be passed in the undergraduate Physics degree, is a taxi driver's licence exam .. I personally know several Physics Phds in Sydney who are applying overseas for jobs in the Finance sector (modelling .. good pay, boring job apparently)

Even worse and more indicative of Australia: the only General Relativity expert in the Mathematics School at the major University here, recently told me that he plans to leave the academic sector to work in Finance, as he feels underpaid and underappreciated in his present work. (Well, maybe that's good in 'natural selection' for devotion to one's field rather than for pay or kudos - the problem is that his post is certain NOT to be filled with someone else, but will just be eliminated).

.. just some thoughts and words.