Job market improves for languages professors

The Modern Languages Association’s job board is North America’s dominant website for posting full-time professor jobs in English and foreign languages departments. That makes it a decent barometer for the two fields’ PhD job markets.

An analysis of this year’s listings shows that full-time job availability improved compared to the previous two devastating years---a period in which listings dropped 40 per cent. There were 8.2 per cent more English professor jobs posted in 2010-11 than in 2009-10. The number of foreign languages jobs was up too---7.1 per cent year-on-year. It’s a welcome improvement, but annual hiring is still one-third below its peak in 2007-08.

Click here to read about a similar trend in the sociology job market.

The analysis showed another bit of positive news too. The proportion of English positions that were tenure-track inched back up to 70 per cent of the total after falling from 75 per cent in 2007-08 to 65 per cent last year. Still, as the MLA points out, these figures can only gauge full-time jobs. Less is known about how many part-time professors have been hired. Anecdotal evidence suggests it’s more than a few: Click here to read "Whatever happened to tenure?" by Stephanie Findlay.