In 1950s and 60s the US seriously overestimated the number of physicists they would need.
Lots of physicists ended up working in business.
But usually still in roles that benefited from their studies.
If you want to lead a team, or eventually a large organisation, there are worse things you could do than spend 3 years learning about people.
Non-technical leadership leading a technical company is why Intel is in the dire straits it is today. When you put a marketing person in charge of Xeon and they parrot about diversity instead of executing on the business it's obvious where the problem is. Notice all the competition is led by technical leadership: AMD is led by a PhD in EE, Nvidia a Masters in EE. Intel's former leadership was technical until they were pushed out by non-technical bean counters.
If by "benefit" you mean "are filled with busywork and the latest cultural biases and performative ceremonies", then yes :-)
But I’m sure there’s selection bias here.
Really? I got nothing with my top notch STEM PhD. Got hungry, homeless an sick. But as mentioned by a friend. A STEM PhD must never be unemployed. There are always opportunities in the world. Be it in China or with Narcos in South America. There are opportunities. Never forget that! Nearly killed me that I forgot. There will always be one to pay you if you can deliver.
-An unemployed STEM
Notice that even for STEM jobs which are strongly constrained by available capital, like structural engineering or petroleum engineering, the pay is substantially higher than the useless jobs and the competition is less. You don't have to go to an Ivy League to get paid $$$ in engineering.