Tech unemployment was below the national average in January, but how high was it? It depends on who you talk to.
IT Brew’s analysis of tech jobs numbers relies on data from CompTIA, but it’s worth looking at another analysis cited in outlets like the Wall Street Journal, which indicates the unemployment figure might be nearly double that shown by the trade organization.
One way, or another. Consulting firm Janco Associates claims that information technology unemployment for January is at 5.7%, a jump from the 3.9% it found in December. That’s a big contrast with CompTIA, who sets the rate at 2.9%. Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis told WSJ the firm expects to see a decline in the future with more adoption of AI.
“Jobs are being eliminated within the IT function which are routine and mundane, such as reporting, clerical administration,” Janulaitis said. “As they start looking at AI, they’re also looking at reducing the number of programmers, systems designers, hoping that AI is going to be able to provide them some value and have a good rate of return.”
So, what’s going on here? According to CompTIA Director of Corporate Communications Steven Ostrowski, it’s in how they each measure who is in the industry. CompTIA takes a narrower look at the sector, focusing on technology professionals—“software development, infrastructure, tech support, cybersecurity, data, etc.,” Ostrowski wrote in an email. These roles, he added, “account for just 23% of the total workforce within the information sector.”
“The remaining 77% covers all other positions, with sales and customer service accounting for the largest share,” Ostrowski told IT Brew. “Also, industries such as motion pictures, sound recording, TV, and newspapers are included in the information sector even though they are clearly outside of the tech space.”
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Janco Associates, in an email, objected to that characterization, claiming they are “using a more granular metric” that accounted “for IT professionals, not all staff who work for IT companies.”
[Ed note: It is IT Brew's policy that corporate spokespeople are not granted anonymity; after the company's initial response, it stopped responding to our inquiries.]
Janco referred IT Brew to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics’ (BLS) numbers on the information sector, which confirmed their 5.7% unemployment figure. But the BLS page describing the industry confirmed CompTIA’s assessment of the Janco numbers; the agency includes in the sector “both traditional publishing and publishing exclusively on the internet; the motion picture and sound recording industries; the broadcasting industries, including traditional broadcasting and those broadcasting exclusively over the internet,” and others.
Okay, back to the numbers. CompTIA’s overall analysis found that unemployment in the sector rose to 2.9% from 2% in December. Despite that, overall hiring and listings increased. Big swings in IT services and software development (up 13,700 jobs) and in telecommunications (down 7,900 jobs) drove much of the fluctuation.
Remote postings showed positive growth across nearly every occupation, with software developers (3,354 jobs), IT project management and cybersecurity engineers (2,444 jobs), and data scientists (1,840 jobs) leading the way. Only database architects showed a drop of 250 jobs.
The top five states for tech job postings were California, at 27,480; Texas, at 20,467; Virginia, at 12,506; New York, at 10,673; and Florida, at 9,825. Illinois, at 9,737, was number six, but had a robust increase of 3,476 postings. The metros with the biggest positive shifts in postings were San Jose, an increase of 3,511; San Francisco, 3,391; New York, 2,742; Chicago, 2,716; and Dallas, 2,322.