The Health of the Classics Job Market during the Pandemic: A Long-Term Perspective

Abstract

The pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a 60% decline in the scale of the academic job market in classics in Canada and the United States. Review of online job posting data stretching back to the mid-1990s shows that the health of this market correlates closely with that of the economy at large. While minor year-to-year economic fluctuations have a minimal impact on the job market in the long term, recessions fundamentally alter its character, with the market remaining depressed for years after the economy itself has recovered. Compounding this problem is the oversupply of PhDs flooding the market at present, a consequence of the long training period of graduate school, which keeps PhD output high for many years after a wave of undergraduate enrolment peaks. A third factor is the trend in academia to short-term positions with high teaching loads, which leads to fewer openings for permanent jobs and a diminished need for faculty. Taken together, current trends bode ill for the future of our discipline and pose an existential threat for many smaller programs.