Schools Had An Easier Time Finding Staff This Year (Redux)

More staff, fewer shortages

As of the latest data from the BLS, there were 116,000 more people working in public K-12 education this year compared to the same time last year. It was a new all-time high.

We’ve been in a period of job growth ever since the summer of 2020. Vacancy rates are still slightly above normal, but schools have continued to hire more people than they lose.

How hard was it for schools to hire this fall compared to the last two years? For which roles? The NCES School Pulse Panel now has three years of comparable data, so we can compare 2024 against the 2022 and 2023 hiring seasons.

The first graph below compares the percentage of respondents who said it was “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult” to fill teaching positions with fully certified teachers positions. The surveys are administered in August each year, and the red bars represent the results for 2024 (this year) versus the two prior years. As the graph shows, schools are finding it less difficult to fill all types of teacher roles.

The numbers still vary widely by subject area. For example, 49% of respondents said it was somewhat or very difficult to find special education teachers. In contrast, just 9% of schools said the same for social studies, and only 8% said it for PE/ Health positions.

The labor market improvements are even larger for non-teaching roles. Again, every category is easier to fill than in prior years. The biggest improvement was in transportation roles. The percentage of respondents saying they had difficulty filling transportation roles fell from 41% in 2022 to 30% in 2023 to 16% in 2022.

I kept the teacher and non-teacher graphs separate, but they use the same scale. Overall, the hardest roles to fill overall were special education teaching positions, followed by classroom aides (not pictured, they didn’t have data for all the years) and math teachers.

I’m taking this as a continuation of last year’s trends. August is by far the biggest month of the year for school hiring, and it went pretty well this year. On average across the country, schools had an easier time filling their open roles this year, and they are quite well-staffed on a historical basis.