Well, the recession has hit many industries and it has certainly been the case for the archaeological industry which employs around 7,000 people in the UK in a number of private and public sector roles.

The Institute for Archaeologists (IfA) has just published it's report on how the recession has affected UK archaeology which has seen a rise in private contracting archaeological and heriatge companies appear since legislation nearly 15 years ago putting responsibility for paying for archaeology on the developer.

It states:

Late in 2008, anecdotal information was coming to the attention of the IfA that the economic decline, and in particular the slump in housing construction, was having a negative impact on commercial archaeological practice.

Together with FAME (the Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers), IfA has approached a selection of archaeological employers to gather statistical data on any job losses in the sector in order to substantiate the impact of the current economic situation and to support the archaeological profession as a whole through this period of uncertainty.

We have found that the economic downturn has had a direct effect upon archaeology. While over the previous five years, the number of people working in archaeology had been expanding by approximately 4% per annum, many archaeological organisations lost staff over the three months to the end of 2008.

In total, 345 archaeological jobs may have been lost in the quarter from 1st October 2008 to 1st January 2009, representing 8.6% of the jobs in commercial archaeology and 5.0% of the entire UK archaeological workforce.

Larger organisations (those that were employing over 50 staff in 2007) have been particularly heavily affected.

Significant numbers of organisations anticipate further job losses in the quarter to the end of March 2009. Most of the organisations that anticipate further losses have already lost staff in the period to 1st January 2009.

Business confidence is very poor, with most employers expecting the situation to further deteriorate in 2009 and for some archaeological practices to cease trading.

IfA will repeat this survey in April 2009, reporting the results on its website and tracking changes in the situation until further notice.

Sad news indeed for such a young profession.

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