Leading indicator on economics job market, October 2011

John Siegfried writes:
"Here are data identifying the number of new jobs listed in the September and October JOE for recent years.

2007   1,171

2008   1,066

2009      924

2010   1,010

2011   1,025

The news could be better, but the  November and December JOEs are yet to come.

And it could certainly be worse. Consider the case of the academic market for historians: No More Plan B

"In 2009–10 the number of jobs posted with the AHA fell 29.4 per cent, from 806 to 569, while 989 PhDs were conferred. This is hardly the first time these two numbers have been far apart. In 1972, the first year for which accurate statistics exist, almost 1,200 new PhDs competed for just over 600 new teaching jobs. Except for two short periods in the late 1980s and the 2000s, the number of openings in history departments has consistently fallen short, sometimes by a very wide margin, of the number of doctorates awarded. As public contributions to higher education shrink, state budgets contract, and a lagging economy takes its toll on endowments and family incomes, there is little reason to expect the demand for tenure-track faculty to expand."