A consideration of each of the columns displayed follows. Both provisional and permanent certificates are included in these figures. The first two columns add together to create total certificates . For instance, the problems of a smaller region like the Southern Tier Central, where there are only 3,284 employed, are different in scale from those of the New York City region, where there are 72,275 employed, but they still may be acute for that region. Other columns in this section describe subgroups of this total number employed.
Temporary licensees are one of the most obvious indicators of shortage.
A temporary or emergency license is only granted if a regularly certified teacher is unavailable or cannot be hired. Temporary licenses indicate immediate need. New teachers reported being in their first year of teaching in October 1998. New transfers , on the other hand, report being new to the district though they have had more than one year's experience elsewhere. Both new teachers and new transfers are indicators of mobility in the teaching population.