Economics Job Market Update: December 2025 - Still Very Bad
Everything is still bad. I will update some main figures now. This post provides an update to my earlier analysis of JOE posting trends with fresh data through December 10, 2025. All code and data remain publicly available on GitHub.
U.S. vs. Non-U.S. postings suggest no real geographic differences, with the U.S. flattening out a lot.
Splitting by all fields
Here’s my attempt at looking across all fields (rather than just finance) using the JEL classifications in the postings. I count a posting in any field that it lists (so if it posts three possible classifications, it will count once in each of those fields). Hence, the total number of postings across fields is larger than the total number of postings. A post sometimes lists itself as “open” or “all fields” or has no classification, and that gets its own grouping. [-0-] [-0-] Only one post is truly missing classficiation.
Here’s the breakdown overall in 2025 of what fields are being posted (I would recommend double clicking on the lines to isolate fields of interest, since there are a lot!):
In what follows, I’ll post the year-by-year comparison for each field, of which there are many: [-1-] [-1-] Previously, I had been missing some finance jobs because I had focused only on G JEL codes, whereas this now includes the full picture of subfields as well.
