The pandemic and the job market for economists

 It's been a tough year on the academic job market. Here's hoping it recovers quickly.

Committee chair John Cawley submitted the following Report of the Ad Hoc Committee  on the Job Market  AEA Papers and Proceedings 2021, 111: 801–802 https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.111.801

" To share information about how COVID-19 is affecting the job market for PhD economists, we have regularly released memos providing information on the demand and supply of new PhD economists. These memos can be found on our committee’s webpage, but below is a summary of the most recent information.

a. Regarding labor demand: the overall number of job openings on JOE in 2020 was down 26.5 percent from 2019. The number of full-time academic jobs in the United States was down 52.8 percent, and the number of full-time academic jobs outside the United States (and listed on JOE) was down 20.3 percent. The number of fulltime nonacademic jobs listed on JOE was down 17.7 percent from 2019.

b. Regarding labor supply: the number of new JOE job candidate accounts created by students was down 19.1 percent from 2019, and the number of people sending AEA signals was down 14.9 percent."