Work Force

• Twitter
• Email
• Show more sharing options

Share Close extra sharing options

• Twitter
• Email
• Copy Link URLCopied!
• Print

Higher Ed’s Work Force Has Returned to Its Pre-Pandemic Size By  Dan Bauman October 10, 2022

After more than two years of uneven recovery, America’s colleges and universities find themselves in a welcome position. Following the addition of an estimated 23,500 employees in July, academe’s work force added another 3,400 jobs in August, which restored it to its pre-pandemic size. All told, an estimated 4.7 million workers are employed by American higher ed today, on par with the labor force’s size during the early days of 2020 — before Covid-19 induced historic rates of furloughs, retirements, and layoffs.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in or create an account if you don't already have one.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or [email protected]

After more than two years of uneven recovery, America’s colleges and universities find themselves in a welcome position. Following the addition of an estimated 23,500 employees in July, academe’s work force added another 3,400 jobs in August, which restored it to its pre-pandemic size. All told, an estimated 4.7 million workers are employed by American higher ed today, on par with the labor force’s size during the early days of 2020 — before Covid-19 induced historic rates of furloughs, retirements, and layoffs.

Job recoveries were strong across both of the sectors of American higher education that the Bureau of Labor Statistics observes. Private institutions employed about 11,000 more workers in August 2022 than they did in February 2020, and public institutions were just short of that pre-pandemic watermark by an estimated 700 jobs.

!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r