World

Princeton PhD graduate applies to 2,300 jobs and still cannot find work

Jack Weis, 30, finished a chemical engineering PhD in 2024. Two years and more than 2,300 applications later, he still has no permanent job, The Wall Street Journal reported.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 20 Oct 2026, 15:27

Nassau Hall on the Princeton University campus in New Jersey. Jack Weis completed a PhD in chemical engineering at the university in 2024. Daderot, CC0 / Wikimedia Commons

Jack Weis has a doctorate in chemical engineering from Princeton University, a summa cum laude degree from Rice University and research that the Nobel committee cited when it awarded the 2024 physics prize. He has also been out of permanent work for two years, after applying to more than 2,300 jobs.

Weis, 30, finished his PhD in 2024 and returned to his parents' home in Salt Lake City, Utah. He began with science roles at pharmaceutical companies and postdoctoral fellowships at national laboratories, then widened his search to software engineering and other fields, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported his case.

He was turned down even for food preparation work at a company that sells frozen crab cakes. Calls to alumni from Princeton and Rice mostly produced advice to keep checking company job boards.

In January he found part-time work training an artificial intelligence system for $70 an hour, but the hours were irregular and eventually dried up. In mid-March he was told in a group chat that the contract had ended.

His parents, both doctors, said they were shocked. His mother, Holly Carvers, went through his applications looking for mistakes and found nothing obvious, and his father, John Weis, said he never imagined his son would struggle to find work.

Economists describe the US labour market as low-hiring and low-firing: companies are reluctant to recruit and existing staff are reluctant to move, leaving few openings for people trying to enter. Employers are also using AI tools to screen large numbers of applications, adding another filter for candidates.

Weis is preparing for law school admission tests in November and working on a plan to use AI-guided drones to remove invasive weeds. He said people who believe something has real value have to step forward and make that value real themselves.

Sources & further reading

Spotted an error? Read our corrections policy

Keep reading

NEXT STORY World

Donald Trump's approval falls to record low of 31% two weeks before US midterms

A four-day Reuters/Ipsos poll put Democrats 12 points ahead on the congressional ballot, with voters citing fuel prices as their main concern before the 3 November elections.

ScrollBeat Desk20 Oct 2026, 16:26Open this article

File photo: US President Donald Trump boards a helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House on 6 October 2026. The White House / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to 31 per cent, the lowest of his two terms, two weeks before Americans vote in congressional midterm elections on 3 November.

The figure comes from a four-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. It is one point lower than the same poll found a fortnight earlier, as voters named fuel prices and the cost of living as their main concerns.

Asked how they would vote if the elections were held that day, 47 per cent of registered voters chose the Democrats and 35 per cent chose the Republicans. The 12-point gap is the widest Democratic lead in the poll this election cycle and puts both the House of Representatives and the Senate in play.

The survey was conducted online with 1,679 American adults, including 1,279 registered voters. The margin of error is 2 percentage points for all respondents and 3 points for registered voters.

Other polls released in recent days point the same way. A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos survey published on Monday put Trump's approval at 33 per cent, with seven in ten respondents saying petrol was becoming unaffordable, while an NBC poll on Sunday found 71 per cent thought the country was on the wrong track and 55 per cent would vote Democratic.

Trump's standing has slid since the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran on 28 February, which pushed up petrol and diesel prices and fed through to the wider economy. He spent Monday campaigning for Republican candidates in Kansas.

Generic ballot questions measure national sentiment and do not decide individual House and Senate races, where district boundaries and local contests shape the result. Republicans still hold structural advantages in several states.

NEXT STORY Bangladesh

Bangladesh scraps Dhaka-Gazipur BRT project after 14 years, will build six-lane highway

The cabinet approved removing stations and lane dividers on the 20.5km airport-Gazipur corridor, where about Tk 2,811 crore has been spent and no BRT bus ever ran.

ScrollBeat Desk20 Oct 2026, 16:25Open this article

File photo: a BRT station on the Dhaka-Gazipur corridor under construction. The government has decided to remove the stations and turn the corridor into a six-lane highway. Mehediabedin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Bangladesh has decided to abandon its first bus rapid transit project, 14 years after work began, and turn the corridor between Dhaka airport and Gazipur into an ordinary six-lane highway.

The cabinet took the decision at its meeting on Sunday, 18 October, and the road transport and highways division issued instructions to its offices the next day. An order signed by Deputy Secretary Taslima Ahmed Poly says BRT stations, lane dividers and other infrastructure will be removed to create a 3+3-lane road, and the two existing two-lane overpasses will be widened to four lanes.

The government will also shut down Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit PLC, the company set up to run the service, and move its work to the Roads and Highways Department. Officials have been told to resolve legal complications with the project's development partners before formally closing it.

The project was approved in November 2012 at an estimated cost of Tk 2,038 crore and was due to be finished by December 2016. The deadline was extended five times and the cost rose to Tk 4,286 crore. About Tk 2,811 crore, roughly 65 per cent of that amount, has already been spent, and physical progress had reached about 97 per cent.

No dedicated BRT bus ever carried a passenger. Tenders to buy buses failed twice, and the infrastructure stood unused while commuters on the airport-Gazipur road continued to face congestion.

A fourth revision that would have raised the cost to about Tk 6,597 crore and extended the deadline to December 2029 was rejected by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council in July 2025. The cabinet then chose the fourth of four options prepared with advice from a team at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, which recommended scrapping the project rather than completing it.

BUET professor Md Shamsul Hoq said the decision showed the government had used a detailed technical report to avoid repeating a costly mistake, but added that residents' concerns were legitimate and that commuter train services along the corridor should be strengthened.

The Gazipur Heritage and Development Organisation said the decision only partly reflects the experts' recommendations, and the Financial Express reported that many Gazipur residents oppose the move. The road transport and highways division has asked its offices for progress reports within 15 days and monthly updates until the work is done, but no deadline has been set for removing the structures.