NCA Publishes 2018-2019 Academic Job Listings in Communication Report
Washington, DC (October 7, 2019)—The National Communication Association (NCA) has released its annual report on academic job listings in Communication. The 2018-2019 report includes data from postings in the online NCA Career Center; on CRTNET, a disciplinary listserv for Communication; and in Spectra, NCA’s quarterly magazine. If a job is posted in more than one outlet, it is counted only once.
The report finds that the number of academic employment opportunities for Communication faculty continues to be among the highest in the humanities and social sciences. The total number of advertised academic Communication positions increased by 130 percent from 2009 to 2018-19. In the 2018-2019 academic year, a total of 808 jobs were posted, compared to 351 job in 2009.
Many of these job postings were for tenure-track positions. According to the report, 467 of the 2018-2019 job postings (58 percent) sought individuals for tenured or tenure track positions, with 373 of those postings specifically seeking an assistant professor. The number of non-tenure track job listings has increased slightly, to 246 jobs (30 percent). Only 50 postings (6 percent) were for administrative positions, and 45 non-academic jobs were posted (5.6 percent). Of Communication specialties, Strategic Communication and Public Relations continues to be the most commonly sought after, accounting for over 13 percent of the postings.
The report also compares the number of job postings with the number of Ph.D. graduates in Communication, as reported by the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). Between 2009 and 2017, a high of 672 doctorates were awarded in 2016, and a low of 595 were awarded in 2012. In 2017, 626 doctorates were conferred.
This valuable data set shows that the academic Communication job market continues to be one of the strongest in the humanities and social sciences.
The National Communication Association (NCA) advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion.
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