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Post by Archivist on May 31, 2012 15:51:05 GMT -5
The ASA Job Bank had 19 pages of ads in May, and seven of the positions had start dates in 2013. I have updated the table with final tallies in my previous post dated Jan 31, 2012. Even though I'm sure we'll see postings for a few last-minute fall semester positions in the weeks to come, this closes the books on the 2011-2012 season. According to this metric we saw 685 pages of job ads over the last 12 months, far better than the past few years (2009-10: 494, 2010-11: 583). For those of us still looking for something better next year, here's to hoping that these trends continue!
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Post by Archivist on Jul 3, 2012 12:57:03 GMT -5
The ASA Job Bank listed 26 pages of ads in June, 2012. Nine of those positions listed start dates for this fall. I'll add another post later with a new table for the new market season.
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Post by Archivist on Aug 2, 2012 12:04:53 GMT -5
Here’s the new table for the 2012-13 job market season. Each month, after updating this table, I’ll add a post below with a short summary of the new count and include a link to this one. Table 9: ASA Job Bank ad pages, June to December, 2007—2012
============================================================= | 2007—2011 | Month 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 | Avg. (Sum) | 2012 -----------------------------------------|------------|------ June 35 35 29 27 32 | 32 (32) | 26 July 110 78 30 63 49 | 66 (98) | 85 August 96 90 50 79 89 | 81 (179) | 75 September 35 41 70 84 147 | 75 (254) | 120 October 94 94 101 115 92 | 99 (353) | 117 November 53 29 58 32 64 | 47 (400) | 78 December 25 41 36 37 51 | 38 (438) | 43 | | June—Dec. 448 408 374 437 524 | 438 (438) | 544 -------------------------------------------------------------
Source: I created these statistics using the "Job Search" webpage of the ASA Job Bank (JB). At the end of each month, I specified a "Search By Date Posted" range and saved all listings in a separate .pdf file. I then calculated a monthly total by looking at the number of pages in my .pdf reader.
Notes: I make no claim that this crude metric for comparing annual job market activity accurately represents the number of jobs available in any given time period. These figures represent the monthly number of ad pages in the JB; a few listings (though not very many) extend to a second page. Most institutions only purchase an ad to run for a single calendar month, but some will run them again later — I have not attempted to identify duplicates. (On the other hand, many smaller schools, especially community colleges, do not list their positions in the JB.) Some of these ads are not for faculty appointments. Similarly, not all of the academic positions are in sociology departments, and some of the inter-disciplinary listings do not limit qualifications to those with advanced degrees in sociology. The JB ads include opportunities for fixed-term and tenure-track positions, senior hires, and program directors.
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Post by anon99 on Aug 13, 2012 14:13:26 GMT -5
Archivist, thanks again for your work on this. It's really interesting to follow the trends and the health of the market.
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Post by It it me or on Aug 25, 2012 21:30:04 GMT -5
Is it me, or does it feel like the job postings are slooooowwwwwinnnnggggg dowwwnnnnn? I imagine ASA had something to do with it for a bit, but it feels like the postings are hitting the breaks. I see that the Archivists work (thank you Archivist, BTW) suggest this year is starting out as well as last year, but overall this year doesn't feel as good as last year. Is it just me, or does anyone else who was on the market last year feel the same way?
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Post by socyuser on Aug 26, 2012 11:59:57 GMT -5
The listings are definitely way slower this week, as far as I can see only one posting since the 20th and even that one is a senior position. I expect this is a post-ASA meetings effect. Then again, I just did a search trying to follow Archivist's system and it came up with 40 total for the month. So unless things pick up considerably in the coming week it will likely be well below 80 average from previous years. It's interesting and reassuring to see, though, that judging from previous years we can expect to see a lot more postings in September and October. I would have expected most schools to try to get out their announcements before the ASA meetings, but I guess many schools don't approve hires until later. I would expect some of those later positions to be from less prestigious schools as well as post-doc positions, but someone commented to me at ASA that UNC Chapel Hill somehow never gets their positions approved until December, so I guess you never know.
p.s. Archivist- I don't know if there's a way to do this or if the ASA would allow it but it would be great if there was a way to make those archived listings available. That's one annoying thing about the online listings, the positions disappear and there doesn't seem to be a way to look up old ones. It would be useful be able to peruse the archives for a variety of reasons. I wonder if we could convince the ASA to put up archives. I suppose they want the listings to disappear so that they can charge for re-listing?
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Post by socyuser on Aug 27, 2012 11:10:41 GMT -5
It looks like part of the explanation for the slowdown last week may have been that the ASA staff were recovering from the meetings. They've just added a handful jobs that have posting dates of August 20 and 21st. I've noticed in the past that they sometimes add new jobs with earlier posting dates, especially when there were very few postings in the days before. It seems like sometimes they just get behind in getting them online, or maybe the posting date is when the school started to fill out the form and the school they took a week before they submitted? The lesson learned is that searching by posting date can be problematic since you can miss new postings if you only search by today's date. You'd think the ASA would give them today's date as the posting date because otherwise aren't they paying for a week of posting that never happened? Ah, apparently they have a separate list of dates for when the listing is active that reflects when it actually went online, but they keep the original posting date (just to make it harder for us to find the positions).
Hopefully more jobs will continue to be added to fill in last week and make the outlook for the month look better.
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Post by Archivist on Sept 1, 2012 14:46:32 GMT -5
The ASA Job Bank provided 75 pages of listings in August, 2012. That brings the total number to 186, consistent with the five-year average. I have updated table 9 of my previous post with the current figures. Regarding some of the angst expressed about the pace of new postings, I would suggest that "The Serenity Prayer" is a useful tool here, particularly the first clause about acceptance. Personally, if I see a few positions that would be ideal for me, I'm thinking its a great season so far, whether there are 600 total jobs available or just 60.
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Post by Archivist on Sept 1, 2012 15:23:03 GMT -5
In another thread, somebody posed this question: Anyone have any rough % guess on what percentage of jobs are out right now of the whole year? My guess from last year: 50% of postings posted pre-ASA 25% post between now & Sep 30th (Oct & Nov deadlines) 25% Post Nov-Feb - Didn't hire on 1st round of folks Here's a different way of looking at recent job market activity, and perhaps this helps us better see the pacing of job postings. In the last four job market seasons, the 50 percent mark got passed sometime in mid-October. Obviously the types of jobs posted will shift as the season progresses, and after December you start to see a lot more VAP, fixed-term positions advertised rather than tenure-track ones. Table 10: Cumulative Percentages of Monthly Job Pages, 2008–2011 Job Markets
============================================== 2008– 2009– 2010– 2011– | Month 2009 2010 2011 2012 | Average ------------------------------------|--------- June 7 6 5 5 | 5 July 22 12 15 12 | 15 August 39 22 29 25 | 29 September 47 36 43 46 | 43 October 66 57 63 60 | 61 November 71 68 69 69 | 69 December 79 76 75 76 | 77 | January 85 83 83 83 | 83 February 91 90 87 89 | 89 March 96 94 93 93 | 94 April 99 97 96 97 | 97 May 100 100 100 100 | 100 ----------------------------------------------
Source and Notes: See table 9.
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Post by socyuser on Sept 18, 2012 19:05:20 GMT -5
Looks like the last few weeks have brought a boom in position announcements. There have been a bunch of new postings over the last couple of days (including a number that were backdated to previous days if you've only been searching for recent posting dates).
I think I followed Archivist's protocol and got 180 posts since Sept 1 and it's only Sept 18. That's already more than all of September last year, which was way more than previous years. The mix does seem to have shifted some towards less prestigious schools and a smattering of non-TT positions, and I definitely have noticed a number of reposts. Seems like things are shaping up pretty well, though.
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Post by Archivist on Oct 1, 2012 12:50:35 GMT -5
The ASA Job Bank listed 120 pages of job ads in September, and the current season total is 306. This is a bit off of last year's pace, but still above the average for the last five years. I have updated table 9 of my previous post with the current figures. I think I followed Archivist's protocol and got 180 posts since Sept 1 and it's only Sept 18. When I saw this note soon after the 18th, I only counted 80 pages of ads. Though I'd rather not clog up the boards with this stuff, feel free to send me a private message if you want to discuss the discrepancies in our methodologies.
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Post by Archivist on Nov 1, 2012 10:24:40 GMT -5
The ASA Job Bank listed 117 pages of job ads in October, and the current season total is 423. I have updated table 9 of my previous post with the current figures. This is the first year (in the last six) we've seen two months with more than one hundred job pages of ads, and they came back-to-back. In the last few years, an institutional shift seems to have depressed the relative number of summer (pre-ASA Meeting) postings, but we can now see a stronger September-October one-two punch. My guess is that the listings will now start dropping off, but we should easily see a total more than five hundred by the end of the year.
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Post by Archivist on Dec 2, 2012 3:11:51 GMT -5
We saw another 78 pages of job ads in the ASA Job Bank during November, and the current season total is 501. I have updated table 9 of my previous post with the current figures.
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Post by Archivist on Jan 2, 2013 17:50:04 GMT -5
The December 2012 ASA Job Bank provided 43 more pages of job ads, bringing the current season total is 544. This is the highest June through December count since I started keeping track in 2007. I have updated table 9 of my previous post with the current figures. If previous trends continue, we've seen about 75% of the fall 2013 job postings by now, and future ads will start skewing more towards shorter-term opportunities. At the end of this month I'll post a new table for the January through May tallies.
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Post by Archivist on Feb 1, 2013 14:07:29 GMT -5
In January, 2013, the ASA Job Bank listed 40 pages of ads, for a current season total of 584. Yes, things are winding down here. Here’s the new table for the winter/spring season of the 2012-13 job market. Each month, after updating this table, I’ll add a post below with a short summary of the new count and include a link to this one. (Edited to move table 11 to a later post so that the full data will appear on the same webpage as the updates.)
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