Shortage of funds, not librarians?
In response to my quick note of a “librarian shortage” in England, Colin Robertson said (quoted by permission):
The article with the 59% figure was referring to public libraries only. Those are government funded, and I’m willing to bet that the salaries they offer are not very competitive with what someone with those same librarianship skills might receive elsewhere… If the salaries are lower in the public sector then that difficulty filling positions is exactly what you’d expect to see, but it wouldn’t mean that there was a shortage of librarians.
Quite correct. There’d just be a shortage of librarians willing to be underpaid, which in my book is only right and proper.
Not English, have no especially efficient way to check this out, but would be interested to see followup. I’ve said before that demand in excess of supply is the only way to drive our prices up; I hope that’s what happens for our English compatriots.