October 10, 2023
The tech sector cooled in September, shedding more than 2,600 jobs, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published Friday. This slowdown comes in contrast to the strong national job market, which added more than 336,000 jobs last month.
IT unemployment ticked up to 2.2% in September, up from 2.1% in August, marking the second straight month of increases. However, IT unemployment still tracked below the national average, which remained unchanged from the previous month at 3.8%.
“There is no sugar-coating the off month of tech employment data,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, in a release. “Despite the persistently high demand for tech skills on many fronts and positive forward-looking projections, there is a lag in hiring at the moment.”
Herbert said a combination of factors is likely at play, including economic uncertainty, higher capital costs, and persistent inflation, which may be leading some CIOs to pause or postpone hiring decisions.
CompTIA says the need for trained technologists remains strong. The report also found that tech job postings fell to just over 184,000 last month, down from a three-year peak of more than 370,000 in mid-2022.
“Tech talent is critical to most companies these days and impacts nearly every industry,” said CompTIA analyst Andrew Hales in an email. “I believe companies will still need to hire for strategic and specialized roles. Roles with the most considerable demand are largely data related, for example, data engineers, data scientists, machine learning engineers, and business analysts.”
The sources for this piece include an article in CIODIVE.
