Our opinion is that the US Pathology Job Market is terrible. There are several pieces of evidence in support of this. One is an ASCP Resident Survey from 1996 available on the internet at:
http://ascp.ais.net/member/rps/surveys/surwi96.asp
An important quote from that article: ..."Almost half (49%) had received no job offer, 30% one offer, 13% two offers, and 4% three offers".
Secondly, if one checks the CAP positions listing service at:
http://www.cap.org/html/member/secure/pls.html
As of 1/15/99, the total number of Pathologists Seeking Positions is 182, the total number of Positions Available is 68 for a ratio of 2.67 job seekers per job. Our experience with the CAP Positions Listing Service is that many of the Positions Available ads are dated. Even if you send a resume to a recent listing you will get a polite rejection letter (or NO letter) stating that they have received large numbers of resumes from qualified applicants.
Thirdly, according to an article published in JAMA, the reference is JAMA, 275(9):708-12 1996 Mar 6, "Of those (graduating residents) seeking employment, the percentage who did not find a full-time position in their specialty or subspecialty ranged between none in urology to 10.8% in pathology".
These articles suggest that Pathologists graduating from training in the US stand a 10.8% chance of being unemployed and a 49% chance of being underemployed and going from Fellowship to Fellowship while searching for an attending level position. The experience of the people who graduated from Residency at about the same time we did seems to confirm that the job market is terrible.