Dive Brief:
- Several associations in the humanities have released jobs reports reflecting the state of the employment market, and the number of faculty positions is down from past years — though economics is a notable exception.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that there are far more open positions for economics Ph.D.s than there are graduates because of demand from within and outside of academia — the number of job listings for this group jumped by 8.5% in 2015.
- The Modern Language Association reported 3% fewer jobs in English in 2014-15 and 7.6% fewer in foreign languages, with fewer tenure-track listings in the latter group.
Dive Insight:
The reports from the Modern Language Association and the American Economic Association do not include information about every single job listing in those fields, but they are accurate representations of the state of the job market.
When it comes to tenure-track positions — a strength for English and foreign language disciplines in the past — numbers are still down from their highs before the recession. Tenure-track listings in English are up slightly from last year but still make up just 67.3% of the total, down from 75-80% before.
Economics, on the other hand, has beat one metric relating to the recession. The number of postings listed in the latest report is higher than every year since 2001 and higher than the number of Ph.D. candidates in the pipeline.