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Higher Education Employment Growth Stable as Job Postings Increase

  • 04/01/19

STATE COLLEGE, PA – According to a new report from HigherEdJobs, the total number of jobs in higher education increased during the third quarter of 2018 but at a marginally slower rate compared to last year.

According to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by HigherEdJobs, higher education employment increased 0.4 percent, or 13,800 jobs, during the third quarter of 2018. This was slightly less than the growth observed one year earlier in Q3 2017 when the number of higher education jobs increased by about 16,000 jobs. However, as noted in previous analyses, overall growth in higher education jobs was negatively impacted by a continuing decline in community college employment.

Meanwhile, the number of postings for open positions in higher education increased by 7.1 percent in Q3 2018, which was the highest third-quarter increase since Q3 2015.

Digging deeper into the job posting trends, the increase in higher education job postings occurred with both full-time and part-time faculty as well as full-time and part-time administrative openings. And, there was a relatively stable ratio of faculty to non-faculty job postings in the third quarter. However, there were several times more full-time postings for each part-time posting for both faculty and non-faculty positions.

"Though many colleges and universities are facing challenges at this moment, the data suggest many higher education administrators and managers are still confident in the industry or at least in their particular institution, planning for and funding both full-time faculty as well as administrative and executive positions," according to John Ikenberry, president and co-founder of HigherEdJobs.

The report analyzes the most current data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and HigherEdJobs' posting trends from roughly 880 colleges and universities that have continuously subscribed to the company's unlimited posting plan for four years. The full report can be viewed at www.higheredjobs.com/career/quarterly-report.cfm.

HigherEdJobs® is the leading source for jobs and career information in academia. During 2018, 5,300 colleges and universities posted more than 256,500 faculty, administrative, and executive job postings to the company's website, which receives 1.4 million unique visitors a month. HigherEdJobs is published by Internet Employment Linkage, Inc. and is headquartered in State College, PA.

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