One wonders sometimes if America would prosper if Academia didn’t. “Higher education employment continues to follow stable growth patterns as overall U.S. employment recovered only slightly in the first half of 2010,” according to HigherEdJobs. “From the first half of 2008 (the initial six-month period of the recession) to H1 2010, higher education employment grew 4.2 percent while the total number of U.S. jobs declined 5.6 percent, or about 7.7 million jobs.”
“Job postings in academia jumped year-over-year almost 36 percent in H1 2010 after declining by almost an identical amount in 2009, suggesting colleges and universities are continuing to fine-tune how they staff positions in response to the fluctuating economy.” Unfortunately, one of the things they like to do most in these jobs is fine tune an economy they are tone deaf to.
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.