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Tech’s taking this itty-bitty world by storm.
Employment in the sector continued to surge in May after a dip earlier in the year, as job listings reached their highest point since June 2023. A CompTIA analysis of the numbers found that tech unemployment dropped to 2.5% from last month’s 2.8%. The national average was 4%.
Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer, said in a statement accompanying the organization’s analysis that the tech jobs numbers showed a more positive picture for the job market.
“The jump in tech job postings is an encouraging indicator more employers are coming off the sidelines,” Herbert said.
Robot revving. Total tech jobs dropped by 42,000 in May, a number somewhat offset by a 27,000 increase in listings. Overall, there were nearly 427,000 total tech job listings for the month.
Part of the boost comes from a rise in AI hiring. CompTIA reported that of the total listed positions, around 26,060—12%—were in the AI sector. That was nearly half of the 57,084 emerging tech positions.
AI employment has been boosted by hiring neurodivergent people, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Some autistic people are particularly skilled at the repetitive tasks necessary to train AI systems; others are uniquely able to detect patterns.
“GenAI has put an even greater focus on neurodivergent employees,” Hiren Shukla, who leads the neurodiversity efforts at EY, told the Journal.
Odds and ends. A leveling-off of layoffs has helped as well. According to an analysis by Dice reporter Nick Kolakowski, data from tech layoff tracker layoffs.fyi shows that widespread cuts have largely cooled since early 2023.
Washington, DC; New York; Dallas; Chicago; and Atlanta led the way for cities hiring remote tech positions. Software developers, IT project managers, data scientists, and support specialists were headliners.
More broadly, open tech jobs were highest in California, Texas, Virginia, New York, and Florida; and in the cities of Washington, DC; New York; Dallas; Chicago; and Los Angeles.