Job postings for higher education positions grew 16.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011, compared to 63.2 percent in 2010, according to a recent report from HigherEdJobs, a source for academic jobs and career information.

The report also reveals that colleges and universities are increasingly hiring part-time faculty during the third quarter, despite the actual number of full-time faculty postings being up.  In fact, job postings for part-time faculty were up 18.1 percent, a jump from the 12.3 percent growth in postings for full-time faculty. This means the percentage of faculty postings for part-time employees rose to 20.3 percent, an increase from 19.5 percent in 2010.  

After analyzing data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, HigherEdJobs finds that the number of actual jobs in higher education grew 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011, as opposed to the 3.8 percent increase in 2010. Higher education jobs account for approximately 1.2 percent of all nonfarm jobs in the U.S. during third quarter of 2011, an uptick from about 1.1 percent in 2009.