We provide a simple framework that helps explore the need for contingent (teaching) jobs in academia alongside the usual tenured-professorship positions. It also explains the coexistence of these two types of jobs in research universities as an equilibrium phenomenon. Imprecisions in the academic editorial process, combined with the increasing difficulty of producing academic research, is suggested as a possible explanation for the recent increasing trend in the share of non-tenure-track teaching jobs in academia as well as the widening wage gap between tenured-professors and teaching faculty. Alternative interpretations are explored.