very model of a modern language professor

signs of the times at the MLA

There are, currently, 73 faculty level positions gossiped about on the Astrophysics Jobs Rumour Mill - this seems a bit low, even considering we are mid-season and not all jobs will be wiki'd yet.
As a non-random sample, I looked at the 2006-7 season and there were then 184 positions rumourmongered about.

IF that is representative, it is a fearsome statistic.
But, there aren't a lot of astro related jobs and Poisson noise is fractionally large.
Even then, I am sensing a > 3 σ fluctuation in the job market.

But, other faculties are larger, and provide more robust statistics, and, ultimately, universities are egalitarian, they will generally cut 'cross the 'board, at least in the short run, rather than deal with the pain of selectively cutting hiring by discipline etc.

The Modern Language Association has a nicely consolidated annual meeting with centralized job information listing - it is members only, natch, but the info will leak.

Disappearing Jobs - InsideHigherEd
Before christmas the signs were bad, looking like a rough year.
The in-joke was that the plot of total positions year-to-year would have to be rescaled, it had always been plotted with the y-axis running from 1,000-2,000.
Would it be more aesthetic to rescale the axis to 0-2,000, or just let the plot go off the axis... (BTW: which did they do? I bet they went for the boring alternative of rescaling...).

The Absent Presence: Today's Faculty
A blog entry on the cost effectiveness of searching for a position achieved net.notoriety.

MLA: (Re)Defining Productivity
The MLA became concerned, posing the question of how to redefine the modern faculty to meet the reality of modern academia (yawn!).

MLA Job Information List history - Gerry Canavan

I found the data on recent history at Gerry Canavan's blog:
MLA jobs had dipped to 1,075 during the mid-90s, oh yeah, astronomy remembers the mid-90s. Ouch.
In 2007-8 they had 1,826 positions - much mo' better.

Then the plunge: down to a quarter to 1,350 in 2008-9 and this year, and if reports are correct, down by more than a third more for 2009-10 - if I did me 'rithmetic right, that leaves 904.5 positions, exactly, for this year - down by more than 50% from the recent peak.

That is definitely at a point where that extra 0.5 position matters.

This is also consistent with the Astro listings - positions are down by a factor of 2 or so from the recent peak.

I would not expect a rebound next year, universities are at the point where they will want actual vacancies and cash in hand before authorizing opening new faculty lines - there will be some serendipitous vacancies, and poaching and opportunity hiring by the few cash rich universities and those few State Universities which have money (yeah, I'm looking at you Texas!).

Question is, what happens medium term - specifically, do hires stay at lower levels for extended periods? Will there be direct adjustment of mean teaching loads and "efficiency improvement" in instruction - enabling more student credit hours per full-time-equivalent?
Maybe.
There will also be some bailing, institutions gambling on rebound and hiring on spec.
States and countries poaching to build new groups. People leaving for greener pastures and promises of more research and resources.

Long term, I do not know what will happen - it depends, to a very large extent, on how long and deep the economic downturn is, and on structural changes that may occur in the interval. There may be a major reform and boom on a time scale of decade or more, comparable to post-war changes in the 20th century.
Or it could be a blip and Situation Normal (AFU) returns.
Or not.

Interesting times. We'll find out the hard way.

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