March tech jobs numbers show instability and doubt in hiring

The tech jobs market continued its tense 2025 holding pattern in March, as the unemployment rate fell ever so slightly and industry employers largely appeared to be holding their breath.

A CompTIA analysis found that March’s 3.1% tech unemployment was a slight drop from February’s 3.3% as the national rate barely ticked up from 4.1% to 4.2%. But that shouldn’t be taken as stability; the tech jobs market has fluctuated over the past year, showing a general uncertainty.

Tech positions declined by a net 8,428 positions over the month, CompTIA found, with an 213,000 uptick not enough to overcome a slight dip in overall postings—478,000 compared to February’s 490,000.

Employment in telecommunications fell by 2,900 jobs, and in IT and custom software services by 8,300 jobs. Cloud infrastructure, data processing, and hosting increased by 1,800 positions. Job postings were more modest, with cybersecurity engineers and analysts leading the way with only 754 new listings.

Unsurprisingly, given the IT axe wielded by President Trump and Elon Musk in the federal government, postings in the Washington, DC, area dropped by 1,808 listings. Seattle and San Francisco saw the biggest metro area increases at 656 and 567 listings, respectively.

Pluralsight CEO Erin Gajdalo told IT Brew that the volatility of the sector job market is due in part to the rapidity of the evolution of AI and other new technologies. Those challenges are leading to a disparity in outcomes due to differences in investment.

“More than half of companies have not yet formed a longer term strategy around things like AI, many have invested, and you see more investment in the larger organizations; they have the money to do so,” Gajdalo said. “So, the midsize organizations, sort of 50 million to 500 million [dollars in revenue], are really just trying to invest to keep pace but don’t really have an idea of where they’re going.”