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The problem with getting a PhD is that the job conditions can change dramatically during the five or so years it takes to complete the PhD. In the mid 1980s, the message was that there was going to be a huge shortage of college faculty as the baby boomers began to retire. The universities petitioned Congress for more money to expand their graduate programs. Lots of folks decided to go to grad school. The number of graduate students in mathematics increased by 50%. Instead of something like 800 new PhDs awarded each year in math, with 450 of these American citizens, by 1992 there were 1200 PhDs awarded every year in math, with 550 or so going to US citizens. That is, there were a flood of foreign nationals getting PhDs in American graduate schools, and entering that job market -- and this was financed by the US government. The job market in 1990-1995 was an unholy disaster: On top of the increased numbers of PhDs, there was a big influx of eastern Europeans, many of them very very good mathematicians; and there was the recession that cost G. H. W. Bush his job.

There was a lot of ugly carp going on at that time. I heard an authoritative rumor that a public university in Virginia hired 60 part-time lecturers to staff the equivalent of 30 full-time positions -- and the 60 part-timers were foreign PhDs to a one. (This was entirely illegal, as I understand things.)

I was unlucky enough to be on the market at this time. Partly my fault: I didn't get tenure at a cow college down south. (But I didn't get tenure in part because they knew they could hire lots better than me at that time.) Fortunately, I managed to get a decent position at a compass-point school in the midwest, where I still am.

The market turned around nicely five years later. The high-tech economy boomed, employing 30% of new PhDs in math; and the long-promised wave of faculty retirements began.