Grim Numbers

[lollardfish]

Academic Job Market.

The reality of radically differing job markets may be especially clear as 2011 begins with disciplinary associations gathering for job interviews at annual meetings and releasing data on the number of available positions. During the 2009-10 academic year, the number of positions listed with the American Historical Association dropped by 29.4 percent, according to a study the group will release today. That follows a 23.8 percent drop the year before. Last year, the association announced that the number of listings it received -- 806 -- was the smallest in a decade; this year's total of 569 marks the smallest number in 25 years.

Comments

[rani23.livejournal.com]

Huh. Are there less students going to school? Do they give any analysis for the numbers?

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

No, there are more students going to school. It's a shift in a lot of things that have been building for three decades (maybe four - the first real crisis was in the early 70s).

The current academic finance model relies on adjunct instruction at the undergrad-only dept, and grad instruction at the bigger schools. So there's no real incentive to hire full-time faculty, while there is an incentive to admit promising grad students.

There's a lot of "doesn't apply to /us/, but others should admit fewer phd candidates," going on in major grad programs, I think.

There was a rush of jobs in the early part of this decade due to retirements, but that wave crested. Now people are holding off retiring as long as possible, due to economic uncertainty.

Economic uncertainty makes HR timid about hiring at the university level, just as anywhere else.

State funding for universities has diminished significantly.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head! But I'm sure there are studies.