A position without future - Postdoctoral Research Associate Virginia Tech Employee Review

Postdoctoral research positions are cheap "very skilled labor" for universities so that they can compete with other research organizations. It may be essential if you are pursuing an academic career in a research university or national lab. But, a postdoc in itself has no future and you are even more expendable than a graduate student. The working conditions are really bad. In general postdocs positions are filled by Indian and Chinese scholars who are trying to stay in the country after they graduated. Sort of the hispanic equivalent of manual labor in the sciences and engineering.