Job Crunch

The news these past few months has been rather depressing for job seekers, with the list of universities that have frozen hiring getting longer each week.   Some have pointed out that this could be good for small or geographically isolated schools with more robust budgets, as they should be able to hire better candidates than usual.  There’s also the potential long-term consequence that faculty who were about to retire may be less likely to now that their retirement savings have been wiped out.  So there may be fewer openings in the next year or two.

The good news, however, is that it appears a university-wide hiring freeze doesn’t always translate to a lack of hiring.  The math department at Tempel University in Philadelphia (which may have been off your radar research-wise, but its current chair is trying to change that, beginning with hiring Dave Futer last year) recently worked out a way to keep their job search despite massive university-wide budget cuts.  The math department at U. Mass Amherst also appears to be continuing their search despite the fact that U Mass was one of the first universities to announce a hiring freeze a few months ago.  But other departments haven’t been so lucky.  Brandeis, UIC and UVa have all canceled their tenure-track searches and I’ve heard that a few places have canceled post-doc hiring.

Does anyone else have news from the front lines of the job search?  Any thoughts on what the impact on the math world (and job seekers) will be?  Should we all be applying for jobs at the NSA as a backup?