Saturday, July 8, 2017

Closing the books on 2016-17

For tenure-track academic hiring in German, 2016-17 marks a new absolute low. To find a year where fewer positions were advertised, you would have to look back at least sixty years to the 1950s or earlier. The record low number of TT jobs advertised on opening day (7) was matched by the lowest number of TT jobs advertised all year (17), and by the earliest posting of the season's last TT job ad (in week 11, surpassing the previous record of week 15 in 2013). This year will also mark a new absolute low in the number of TT hires, as one of the 17 searches (Hamilton College) was downgraded to a VAP search; the maximum possible number of TT hires, 16, is lower than the previous low of 19 hires set in 2009-10.

That's just looking at the MLA/ADFL job information list. If you look at listings from all sources as reflected in the German jobs wiki (with 11 years of data going back to 2006), the situation is worse. The previous low, 27 TT jobs from all sources (from last year, 2015-2016), was in line with the number of TT searches from 2009-2015 (average of 33). So the current year marks a drop of 37% drop compared to the previous all-time low in the space of one year. One more time: a 37% drop compared to the previous all-time low in the space of one year.

For non-tenure-track hiring, it was another solid year: 41 positions advertised in the ADFL/MLA JIL before it closed, fifth highest and just a few places out of third (43 in 2007) and even on pace to set an all-time record just a few months back. But the VAP market went flat unexpectedly early this year. As far as NTT positions from all sources, 2016-17 is another solid year: 55 advertised NTT searches, just above average (54 for the years 2006-17).

The lack of late VAP hiring is something of a danger signal, as it suggests that late-spring/early-summer language department budgets are under pressure and the advertising of TT positions in the fall may be impacted.

Our profession is not in good health.