11th July 2011, 02:12 PM
I think Kevin's is a fair estimate. Essentially there aren't a huge amount of companies who are handing out full time positions in any profession right now, everyone is hedging your bets, however, I think this is more connected to the economic crisis than archaeology in particular. While the archaeolgical profession has always been an area where short term contracts apply, this is only viable when the jobs on offer are signifcantly smaller than the people to fill them (like now). Also I've been under the impression that academic post-doc postions have always been only as long as the research project they have been working on and don't necessarily think that you have 'one strike and your out' as far as trying to get a position in the first place. As far as I'm concerned as long as your persistent, keep learning, add to your skill set, show you have an interest in archaeology apart from monetarily (which shouldn't be hard as the pay is rubbish) then you have as good a chance as anyone else.