[counters]

Absolutely. There have always been domains where industry roles have been just as sought after as academic ones - think Computer Science broadly, and all the opportunities one has with a PhD there. Other domains have been slow to catch on to this, but it seems like there has been an inflection point over the past 10 years where we're just so grossly overproducing PhDs in so many domains relative to academic jobs that there is mounting pressure on degree programs to revamp their training/prep for "alternative" career paths.

Myself and colleagues are definitely trying to encourage our alma mater to have more support for externships other opportunities in industry. I think things will continue to change - for the better, for early career scientists - over the next 5-10 years. If only because there is a workforce crisis in my field where skills like AI and software engineering are in extremely high demand, but even 3-4 years ago we actively discouraged PhD students from pursuing this type of work!