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Higher Education Employment Suffers Large Decline in Q3 2015

  • 11/25/15

STATE COLLEGE, PA – The number of jobs in higher education declined 1.31 percent in Q3 2015, the fourth consecutive quarterly decline for the industry and the largest quarterly decline since at least 2007, according to a recent report from HigherEdJobs, the leading job and career site for higher education professionals.

According to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by HigherEdJobs, colleges and universities lost about 21,200 jobs during the third quarter compared to the same period last year.  Broken out further, one-third of the positions, or 7,100 jobs, were at community colleges, despite making up only four percent of all higher education jobs.

While the number of jobs in higher education was down, the report found that ads for open positions in academia were up 23.4 percent. And, for the second quarter in a row, full-time job postings grew at a faster rate than part-time postings. 

“For the past few years, postings for part-time higher education jobs tended to grow at a faster pace — and comprised an increasing share — than postings for full-time higher education jobs," says John Ikenberry, president of HigherEdJobs. “But for two quarters in a row now, job postings for full-time positions have outpaced those for part-time.”

The report analyzes the most current data from BLS and HigherEdJobs’ posting trends from colleges and universities that have continuously subscribed to the company's unlimited posting plan for four years, a group of roughly 890 schools that have no financial deterrent not to post any openings. The full report can be viewed at www.higheredjobs.com.

HigherEdJobs® is the leading source for jobs and career information in academia. During 2014, over 5,300 colleges and universities posted more than 159,000 faculty, administrative, and executive job postings to the company's website, which receives more than 1,000,000 unique visitors a month. HigherEdJobs is published by Internet Employment Linkage, Inc. and is headquartered in State College, PA.

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