Jobs in 2009 (again !)

[monty]

With a variety of jobs becoming available and whispers of market confidence....are unemployed archaeologists now finding work.... are things picking up?

[troll]

Honest answer...don`t know. I think its too early to tell and from what I can see, a fair amount of the jobs on offer are desk-based. There also seems to be an increase in heritage related jobs and courses offered by universities (jobs.ac.uk website) and, a number of positions in landscape management and community archaeology. Will we see field archaeologists move away from temping agencies and daytime tv anytime soon? All depends on the development and infrastructure industry I suppose. Which of course,in turn depends upon willing banks. Whatever happens, it will be interesting to see if field staff come back fatter (through biccies and tv) or on the point of starvation after a cheap diet of dole food!

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

[chiz]

Some are, recent recruitment of 30 odd at one unit, there was a site with 70-80 on it a couple of weeks ago, but they are all back on the lookout as far as I know. All very stagnant here in London though with more redundancies expected next month.
Spoke to fieldwork manager at one unit, had had over 400 applications for a site assistant posts. There is no way anyone can sort through that lot. I was asked 4 questions:
Do you have CSCS?
Do you drive?
Where are you based?
How long have you been digging?
In that order.

The jobs market in archaeology is in my opinion almost bloated with unemployed archaeologists, a lot of them very very good, and most with 'decent' levels of experience compared to recent years. You can't see the wood for the trees. I feel very sorry for new graduates this summer. At present we are suffering from not only the recession, but the after-effects of a period of boom, when frankly anyone could get a job, and keep it, and so now appear fairly experienced by the traditional '12 months/2 years' levels.
Because there had been so much work on, the traditional attrition rate had dropped right off as people could get work easily, and stayed in archaeology, whereas 5 years ago many would have given up as it wasn't worth the grief and poor pay. And now there aren't those comparatively well paid cushy graduate jobs to escape into, so even if you want to leave archaeology, you are kind of stuck doing what you know.
So we have more archaeologists, who are more experienced, going after fewer jobs.
It will sort itself out in the end of course, that's what is so wonderful about the market...

Hopefully things will pick up and we can get back to the bad old days!

Personally I expect the one thing no-one has thought of will happen: There will be loads of sites, and no archaeology on them...'developments, developments everywhere, and not a ditch to dig!'

[archgirl19]

The jobs market is very bloated. I heard from a colleague at work who applied to the EH Historic Environment Management Traineeship that there were 950 applicants.

Lets face it, there are all those already out of work, those about to be out of work and those graduating hoping to find work. Just too many people and too few jobs, although I admit more are being advertised as we have hit the new financial year. I doubt it will last and in a few months time we'll be back down to a trickle until things really pick up properly.

I'm currently looking for work and I have to say I haven't had much luck. Maybe I'm really bad at application forms or maybe there is just too much competition. Either way I'm just hoping things will pick up. The recession is biting hard, not just for field staff but others too. Everyone is looking to make savings and heritage is considered a bit of a luxury.

I just keep imagining what we could do with all the money these MPs are paying back!

[troll]

How about building new prisons to house MPs?

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

[chiz]

I think we have to accept that we will probably never get back to 2007-8 levels of employment, so until the number of archaeologists falls to meet the number of jobs we will always have a lot of unemployed archaeologists (I am only really talking about site staff and px/specialist staff here).

One problem this causes is the sheer number of applications means that there will always be an element of arbitrariness about choosing new staff -it takes a lot of money to sift 400 or 950 applications, especially if you are bound by a strict HR policy like most council units. That is one reason why there are less adverts on here -the jobs are out there, somewhere, but companies cannot afford to be swamped by applicants, so use word of mouth, or ex-employees, or phone other units that have shed or are shedding staff. Units are also doing a lot of inter-unit subcontracting of staff, great for the people in work as you keep your job, but less good for those seeking work as it reduces, to use the charming mot de jour 'churn'.

Archaeology always had a problem of retaining skilled staff, as the attrition rate was so high due to pay and conditions and the nature of the work. It can be argued that in the past this kept more 'committed' archaeologists in work, whilst the 'chaff' and the less committed (but maybe with no less potential) left after a year or three. And were replaced by the next batch of keen and green trowelfodder from the universities. We still have the graduates coming through, they are still in the main not being taught relevant skills, but as attrition has dropped through lack of alternative, the system is bloated and choked up with archaeologists.

What are the solutions to clearing the logjam? Well there just aren't enough jobs for everyone already established, let alone the new graduates (sorry!), so its not going to be the economy, or work picking up as I think we all know that there will be no return to the height of the old boom levels unless some new infrastructure scheme hits a 40km long deeply stratified site! And even then the levels are not and never were sustainable. I feel we will see a 10-20% drop in commercial staffing levels when we come out of this. To be blunt, we need a few hundred archaeologists to leave the profession, to go sideways into other related jobs, or to leave the country to work elsewhere. We get a few hundred graduates wanting to join every year, so we must have a few hundred leave, or the net gain in archaeologists is a net increase in unemployment and misery.

Anyway, I'm off to take advantage of having no work on and get out of town for a week. Enjoy the bank holiday weekend!

[mercenary]

The cuts continue and are moving up the heirarchy for one local unit that is getting rid of 60% + of their Project Officers.

[Segovax]

I am inclined to agree with Bob, the work is there but not particularly on BAJR for the reasons correctly mentioned (time in sifting applications not to mention the numerous phone calls from few hundred folk). I have managed only 2 weeks unemployment so far this yar and its looking good up til christmas but i think its primarily word of mouth in the site hut and politely enquiring either with friends or with units.
Its always been a bit of an arse trying to get fieldwork and defintiely more so since October last year when our 'canary industry' started showing the tell tale signs of an economic down-turn.
Yet, applying to advertised jobs and making those follow-up phone calls still bears fruit i reckon but if that fails buzzing a few units, and trying and find out if there are forthcoming projects and who would be the person to contact would be equally effective.

I think being willing to upsticks and move where-ever works too. Provided they offer accomadation, i have noticed a trend whereby units that would and have ordinarily offered accomodation for jobs, no longer doing so, possibly because they have undercut other tenders so dramatically they either can not afford to offer housing or worse think that field staff are so desperate they will take the job no matter what.
Eitherway there is work out there, just hanging on the grapevine, a little more than before.

....this post hasn't made anyone feel good has it?

[kevin wooldridge]

I think Mercenary has highlighted one of the big problems in the industry at the moment. Many of the archaeological units around the UK that have spent years building up 'core teams' are now discarding those posts further 'casualising' UK archaeology. As well as the instance that Mercenary refers to there are jobs losses to core teams in London and the Midlands. Any short term increase in 'field vacancies' would appear to be the classic example of the 'dead cat bounce' effect........

And this leaves us.......well there seems little indication that many/any archaeology students graduating this summer have any means of entry into the profession. Some of us have been saying for nearly a year now that this is potentially the biggest potential disaster facing UK archaeology; one where we have a literal lost generation. At the moment there doesn't seem to be many projects that continue over the winter of 2009/2010, suggesting that the 'new model' for UK archaeology may be both casual and intermittent.

I can't help but think that it isn't just a smaller and leaner industry that will emerge from this 'recession', but one that is closer to the early 1980s in its terms and conditions of employment and employee profile. I well remember the days when many of the established units (county, city and town) were in effect one person posts. We seem to be heading back that way.....Agree with Segovax...this post hasn't made anyone feel good has it?

With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...

[Lolabun]

It will be interesting to see what the actual attrition rate will be after this time of uncertainty (will it be much worse than the usual numbers?)and what percentage of graduates actually succeed in getting a job once finishing university.

The reason im saying this is that I remember at TAG last christmas, numbers quoted (for number of archaeologists to be out of work by Easter) was 40 - 50%. We know through the IFA polls that it has been 16% - still a very large number and potentially a large lost of skill - but not near the numbers quoted at Christmas.