Q4 2025 Insights
Private Educational Services employment has shown a generally stable trend recently, with seasonally adjusted employment figures hovering near 4.0 million persons in the first part of the year and into August 2025. Job openings in the broader Private Education and Health Services sector remain substantial, with over 1.5 million openings as of August 2025.
The sentiment among employees in this sector is highly competitive and often stressed, contrasting with the general stability suggested by overall employment figures.
K-12 Teachers: The job market for teaching is described as unusually competitive, especially in highly desirable geographic areas, due to a combination of factors. These factors include the exhaustion of COVID relief funds leading to budget tightening and position collapses in districts, uncertain economic conditions causing fewer experienced teachers to retire or leave their positions, and decreasing overall enrollment in some regions due to demographic shifts. Experienced teachers are being "Reduction in Force" (RIF'd) in some areas, and new teachers face a brutally difficult entry market. There are still many openings in less desirable or specialized roles (like Special Education, although, even those roles are becoming competitive) and in schools in less popular areas, which is a common pivot point for job seekers. Overall, the sentiment is high anxiety and a need to be flexible on location or subject to secure a role.
Academics (Higher Education) and Others: The broader job market is described as "devastatingly cooked" and bleak, which also impacts academics seeking to pivot outside of the sector. While some comments suggest that higher education itself is doing "great" (relatively speaking)" and that AI replacement is not an immediate concern for certain roles, many workers across industries, including education, report high rates of burnout, with causes cited as too much work, lack of resources, and economic anxiety leading to labor shortages where more work is dumped on fewer people. For those contemplating a career switch, the general consensus is that every field feels oversaturated, adding to the pressure and feeling of being stuck.