‘Anomalies’ Visualized by Ten Years Tracking of Ph.D. Recruitment Data on JREC-IN in Japan

Abstract

We have accumulated retrieval data of PhD job recruitments using the JREC-IN website, which is the public jobs database in Japan. We focused on retrieval for natural science and engineering fields with five typical keywords such as ‘Chemistry’ and ‘Biology/Life science’. To continue the retrieval for ten years, a simple keyword search was demonstrated, although a more detailed analysis might be available for short-term searches. Our data revealed several anomalies. First, the ratios of non-permanent positions against permanent positions in ‘biology/life science’ fields and ’chemistry’ fields were much higher (195% and 153%) than other fields such as ‘physics’. Biologists and chemists may easily find non-permanent positions, but it is not easy to find a permanent position. Second, a clear anomaly of recruitments according to seasons in one year was observed based on the ten years’ historical data. Because the fiscal year in Japan starts in April, the number of recruitments of permanent positions was maximised in August in all fields. Then, the peak of recruitments of non-permanent positions appeared in November through February. Our work provided fundamental knowledge to understand and solve the PhD job problem in the natural science and engineering fields in Japan.