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The Job Market in Mathematics Enjoys a Rebound

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By Gabriela Montell

The job market for Ph.D.'s in mathematics -- which was depressed throughout the 1990s -- is in the midst of a major recovery, fueled mainly by faculty retirements.

Job openings in the field soared 22 percent in 1999-2000, according to a report set to be released this month by the American Mathematical Society. Its statistics, the most recent available, show that the total number of faculty openings in 1999-2000 was 1,876, up from 1,538 the previous year. In even better news for young scholars, the number of tenure-track positions open to new Ph.D.'s rose 33 percent in the same period -- to 1,146 from 859.

"The job market is really good right now," says Bruno Nachtergaele, a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Davis. "Nobody seems to be having any problem finding a good position."

Seven of the 10 Ph.D.'s who graduated from UC-Davis in 2000-1 found jobs in academe, 1 took a job at a software company, and 2 are unaccounted for. Twenty of the 28 Ph.D.'s who graduated from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2000-1 got academic jobs, while 5 found jobs outside the academy, and 3 are unaccounted for.

Professors attribute the big upswing to several factors, foremost among them an increase in faculty retirements.

In the mid-1980s, about 300 positions a year were vacated because of death or retirement, with most of the vacancies resulting from the latter, says James W. Maxwell, associate executive director of the mathematical society. "In 2000, that number was up to about 600," he says. "And if you add 300 positions at a time when universities are feeling fortunate and are allowing departments to fill those positions, then you begin to see more departments advertising open positions."

The Rochester Institute of Technology just experienced a changing of the guard. Darren A. Narayan, an assistant professor of mathematics there, says his department hired him and two other tenure-track professors in 2000, and five more this year. Half of the eight were positions created by retirements.

The mathematics department at Dartmouth College is taking on a younger look too, says Dana P. Williams, its chairman. "Three years ago we didn't have any junior faculty to speak of, whereas now we have three assistant professors, and we plan to hire two more later this year. Within two years, I expect to have 5 junior people in a department of 18 full-time people."

Although it's less common, some departments are hiring, not just to replace their retirees, but to actually expand the size of their faculties to keep up with growing enrollments and new areas of research. At Davis, Mr. Nachtergaele says that his department has hired five new faculty members over the last two years -- only one of them to replace a departing professor. He expects his department to hire two new faculty members a year for the next five years.

The math department at Florida State University hired six people this year -- four of them for new lines. "This is the most people we've hired in 30 years," says Dewitt L. Sumners, the chairman. His department is also expecting some retirements, six in 2003.

Retirements are but one factor in the equation. Another factor that has led to a significant increase in the number of starting jobs is a National Science Foundation program known as VIGRE, for Vertical Integration Grants for Research and Education in the mathematical sciences. Created in 1999, it awards grants to encourage mathematics departments to bring together undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors in a research setting.

Since its inception, the program has awarded 31 grants -- usually about $500,000 a year for three years. The money has bolstered support for mathematics research and led to the creation of about 150 three-year postdoctoral positions for U.S. citizens in the field.

T. Christine Stevens, a professor of mathematics at Saint Louis University, says the program has had "a positive trickle-down effect" on the job market. Departments that would "have hired the people who are taking the VIGRE postdocs are now looking at another category of applicant," she says.

In fact, many new Ph.D.'s in the field say they are finding more jobs to choose from. "This was the first market in which if you saw a school that you didn't like, you didn't have to apply," says Mr. Narayan of the Rochester Institute, who earned his Ph.D. from Lehigh University in 2000. "I applied only to schools east of the Mississippi and still had a successful job search. That would have been unheard of in the '90s, when people applied for any and every position. I blocked out half the nation and still came up with the job I wanted."

Compare his experience with that of Michael Prophet, an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Northern Iowa who received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Riverside in 1993. "When I attended the Employment Register in January 1993, it was just this enormous sea of people in suits looking for jobs." That year he was hired for a two-year visiting position at Idaho State University. At the end of his first year, Idaho State cut his salary because of budget problems. "The reality was that I could take it or leave it, because if I left it they could get 100 other people to do it. That's unheard of now. Employers are so anxious to keep people on because they can no longer get 10 other people to do the job."

Many departments report that they are receiving fewer job applications and that the competition for top candidates has intensified. "A few years ago you'd receive several hundred applications for a single position," Mr. Prophet says. "This past academic year, for three advertised positions we had not much more than 100 applications."

Jeffrey Johannes, an assistant professor of mathematics at the State University of New York at Geneseo, agreed that applicants increasingly have the upper hand. On the market for the second time last year, he noticed that many institutions were conducting searches earlier in the hope of attracting the best candidates before they were snapped up. "It was a lot more fun being on the market this time," he says. "I was getting calls in December, and from that point on I really was convinced that I would get what I wanted, so it was my chance to be in control rather than the other way around."

More mathematicians also have found jobs in government and industry. Mr. Maxwell of the Mathematical Society says that the percentage of Ph.D.'s working outside the academy rose to more than 31 percent in 2000, up from 27 percent in 1999 and about 20 percent a decade ago.

Applicants with an expertise in statistics, biological mathematics, and financial mathematics are hot in and out of academe, according to experts in the field. Investment firms have been hiring mathematicians in recent years, and the biomedical boom has created a demand for mathematicians who can do biological computing and modeling and statisticians who can do data mining and analysis.

"We're trying to hire statisticians here and we just can't do it," says Steven G. Krantz, chairman of the department of mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis. "And we're not alone. Good statisticians can go anywhere they want. They can go to a research institute, a free-standing statistics department, or into private industry where they'll be paid double."

Specialties such as discrete mathematics and mathematics education are also are in demand.

So, will the good times continue? Many experts in the field remain cautiously optimistic. However, if the economy continues to stumble, it could take a toll on next year's job market.

Already there are signs that it could be less rosy. The recent slowdown is affecting some state university budgets, says Mr. Prophet. "Here in the state of Iowa the economy has created budget cuts at the university levels, and as a result there are hiring freezes. So we won't be able to hire for all the open lines that we have."

Most job seekers aren't panicking.

"I'm not worried," says Amy Ksir, an instructor and postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Ms. Ksir, who obtained her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Pennsylvania, will start her second job search next year. "I feel like I have a good chance of getting a job that I like in a place where I want to be. And I'm also feeling like, even if I don't, I'll have other options."