Number Employed in Libraries in the United States as of April 2021 and April 2022

For the latest numbers, see Number Employed in Libraries in the United States as of April 2023.

This is an update to Number Employed in Libraries in the United States as of April 2020, where I explained this being an update of ALA Library Fact Sheet 2: Number Employed in the United States but using numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics instead of the numbers from various reports not recently updated used in the Digest of Education Statistics.

Starting with this excerpt from the April 2020 post:

But mostly, I’m hoping that because it’s numbers for 2019, that the updated numbers for 2020 will then accurately reflect the COVID-19 disruption and economic downturns of this year, and give a clearer picture of the profession as a whole.

Well, not quite. Or rather, not quite yet. A considerable increase in the number for Educational Instruction and Library Workers, All Other, from May-2019 129,040 to May-2020 142,550, as well as a slight increase for Library Technicians from May-2019 88,720 to May-2020 89,070, increased the total number, from May-2019 443,750 to May-2020 455,480. So librarianship is really doing fine — right??

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. The increases there serve to erase the decreases in the remaining numbers. Repeating the previous May 2019 numbers from the April 2020 post: