For years, synagogue leaders have said they can’t find enough clergy to fill their pulpits, leading to warnings of a nationwide rabbinic shortage. At the same time, openings for campus rabbis at Hillel chapters draw an average of 19 applicants each.

This mismatch between what rabbis want to do and the kinds of jobs available is among the many findings in the first-ever empirical study of the American rabbinate across denominations, released this week by the Atra Center for Rabbinic Innovation.

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Only about half of all rabbis work in synagogues.

Those who do tend to find their job overly stressful and exhausting. Other kinds of rabbinical jobs offer much higher job satisfaction.

About 56% of rabbis are in pulpit jobs. The rest work for nonprofits, as chaplains, for day schools and universities or as independent entrepreneurs. The researchers spoke to 222 people who have held jobs in both categories. They said that working for a synagogue pays better but that, by every other metric of job satisfaction, working outside the synagogue is significantly better.

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Rabbinical students today reflect a far more diverse cohort than in the past. According to the Atra report, 58% identify as women, 30% as men, and 12% as nonbinary.

An estimated 51% identify as LGBTQ, a contrast made starker with survey data collected in the same study showing that only 15% of rabbis ordained 10 to 20 years ago are LGBTQ.

Meanwhile, 16% of rabbinical students are Jews by choice and 12% identify as a race other than white.