The following table presents approximate counts of academic positions advertised in the Communications of the ACM between September and January in each of the past four years. For each entry, the first number gives positions in the United States; the number in parenthesis gives positions outside the U.S. In this table, positions are classifed into three main categories: postdocs, non-tenure-track positions, and tenure-track positions.

Graphical representation of data: ( JPEG format / b&w pdf / color pdf / b&w postscript / color postscript )
Position Categories	Numbers	Domestic/Foreign	Schools	Notes	Trends	Starting Date	Acknowledgement

Categories of Positions

• Postdocs: Post-doctoral positions within academic institutions.
• Non-Tenure Track Positions: Positions advertised as term appointments or specified identified as not following a tenure track.
• Tenure-Track Positions: Positions which are tenured or which can lead to tenure. These positions are further divided into two subcategories:
  • Junior Positions: Appointment at the Assistant Professor level.
  • Senior Positions: Appointment at the Associate Professor or Professor level. These positions include endowed chairs, department chairs, and deans.

Numbers of Openings

Domestic and Foreign Positions

Schools

Notes

• The Communications of the ACM was chosen for this review, because one might expect that most colleges and universities will advertise their open positions. Further, the months September through January were chose, because one might expect that most permanant positions for a following year would be advertised in those issues. However, some openings clearly are missed in this counting.

• CRA's 1997-98 Taulbee Survey estimated that the number of new Ph.D. graduates entering academia was about 360. (The actual survey reflects experience for the year given, although it is taken the following fall.) At the CRA Snowbird Conference in July 1998, Dexter Kozen and Stu Zweben who organize the Taulbee Survey for the CRA indicated that they expected this number to remain about constant ffrom the previousl year. The corresponding figure for 1998-1999 is 425 -- extrapolating from the 80% response rate of the Survey to 100% of the schools. Note, however, that in 1998-1999, the Survey was sent to more schools, identified as granting Ph.D.s. The increase in supply from 1997/8 to 1998/9 can be explained completely by this increased mailing and responding.

• The Taulbee Survey indicates that the number of new Ph.D.s going to the 1300+ non-Ph.D.-granting schools seemed decline from about 60 of 360 in 1996-1997 to 45 of 425 in 1997-1998 to 35 of 460 in 1998-1999. The number going to non-Ph.D.-granting schools recovered slighted to 45 of 450 in 1999-2000.

Trends

• The number of advertised post-doctoral positions and the number of senior level positions has remained about constant over the period.

• While the number of non-tenure track positions increased significantly in percentage terms in each of the years, the number of such positions advertised during this time frame is relatively insignificant.

• For the first time in several years, the number of junior-level, tenure-track positions decreased in 2001-2002, with the number of advertised positions being roughly comparable to the 1998-1999 year. Prior to this year, the number of such positions had shown a steady grown for each successive year for which these figures have been compiled.

  More specifically, the number of junior-level, tenure-track positions increased about 28.8% from 1996-1997 to 1997-1998 and again 39.3% from 1997-1998 to 1999. After these dramatic incrases, the increase to 2000-2001 was only 6.2%.

  Note, however, that the "multiple positions" category increased somewhat in 2000-2001, and the drop of advertised positions for 2001-2002 was considerably sharper in the ads for specific positions than for the ads indicating only "multiple positions". Since the counts presented here always count "multiple positions" conservatively as 2, the number of positions in this tabulation would not necessarily show an increase in openings grouped together as "multiple positions".

• While the positions advertised by schools in the United States have increased steadily, advertised positions at schools outside the United States have decreased. This may indicate an actual decrease in positions available, but one might speculate that rather such schools may choose to advertise there positions elsewhere -- not in the Communications of the ACM.

• For 1999-2000, 2000-2001, and 2001-2002, many ads indicated that appointment might be possible at several ranks. The tabulated statistics count positions at the junior level, except when a position is specifically designated as an endowed chair, department chair, or Dean. In 2000-2001, virtually all ads for a senior position were for department heads, chairs, or assistant chars. In 2001-2002, ads sought candidates for a few more endowed chairs, but most senior positions still were for department heads, chairs, deans, and the like. The statistics for 2001-2002 and 2000-2001 each are slightly higher than for the preceeding year, reversing a modest drop in 1999-2000.

• Even with this limited selection of ads, the supply of new Ph.D.'s was close to the positions announced here in 1996-1997. Even according to this abrdiged data, the demand for junior-level tenure-track people exceeded supply by 15.3% in 1997-1998, by 60.5% in 1998-1999, by 52.7% in 1999-2000, and by 54.6% in 2000-2001 -- and this does not count post-docs or non-tenure-track openings.

Starting Dates

• For senior-level, tenure-track positions, a couple each year started in the spring and a couple more in the summer. The remainder indicated a start for the regular academic year (e.g., July, August, or September). As with the number of such positions, the number of schools indicating various starting dates seems stable.

• Many schools did not indicate specific starting dates.

• The vast majority of both domestic and foreign positions start in the Fall.

• The number of junior, domestic, tenure-track positions starting in January or in the Spring semester included 6 in 96-97, 7 in 97-98, 14 in 98-99, and 17 in 99-00.

• The number of schools specifying either a Spring or Fall starting date increased from 8 in 96-97 to 15 in 97-98 to 27 in 98-99 to 34 in 99-00. By 2001-2002, the number had decreased again to 20.

  Two more in 98-99 indicated a starting date in Spring, Winter, or Fall. In 98-99, two additional schools said "immediately"; 7 indicated "immediate" in 1999-2000. In 2001-2002, two schools listed "July 2002 or earlier". While none of these numbers are very large within the context of all the positions advertised, one might hypothesize that variability starting dates indicate that several schools will take new people whenever they become available.

• Only 3-5 positions started in the summer each year.

Acknowledgement

This document is available on the World Wide Web as

    http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/dept/cacm-ads.96-02.html

created March 3, 1999 last revised October 24, 2002
For more information, please contact Henry M. Walker at walker@cs.grinnell.edu.