Tech Companies Accelerate Hiring as Other Industries Slow Employment Growth, CompTIA Analysis Finds

Hiring by U.S. technology companies in August reached a near two-year high, a positive counterweight to slower payroll growth and tech employment in other sectors of the economy, an analysis by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the information technology (IT) industry and workforce, finds.

Tech companies added an estimated 26,800 workers last month in both technical and non-technical positions, according to the “Employment Situation” report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals. It’s the largest monthly gain in tech industry jobs since November 2018. So far this year tech industry hiring has increased by more than 120,000 positions.

Information technology occupations in all sectors of the U.S. economy fell back by 334,000 in August, a reminder that monthly occupation-level data reporting from the Bureau of Labor Statistics may be subject to higher levels of variance and volatility. Additionally, while difficult to precisely quantify the impact, it is possible the return of uncertainty associated with the Delta variant affected tech occupation hiring in some sectors.

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The unemployment rate for technology occupations remains at a very low 1.5% compared to the national rate of 5.2%.

“There are a number of positives in this month’s Jobs Report with tech sector hiring, a falling unemployment rate and strong employer hiring activity for tech talent,” said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA. “The offsetting dip in tech hiring in some areas of the economy is a potential cause for concern but could also be a momentary pause in an otherwise upward trending tech hiring curve.

Within the tech sector all five employment categories were in positive territory in August paced by new hiring in data processing, hosting and related services (+11,900) and IT services and custom software development (+9,800). Other information services, including search engines (+3,500) and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+1,400) also showed solid job growth, while telecommunications had a modest gain (+200).

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Employer job postings for open technology positions continued to trend upward in August, surpassing 321,000. Three in 10 job postings were for positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills.

Top industries for tech job postings included professional, scientific and technical services (58,608), finance and insurance (32,548), manufacturing (24,352), information (19,304), educational services (15,718) and retail trade (10,521).

The Jacksonville metropolitan market recorded the largest month over month gain in tech jobs postings, followed by Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore and Boston. At the state level Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland and Idaho had the best month over month performance.

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