Dueling Market Forces: IT Employment Declines in January Amid Perennially Tight Labor Supply
Alexandria, VA, Feb 8, 2023 – In January, IT employment declined 0.22% month-over-month despite an unemployment rate in IT of only 2.1% in Q4, according to TechServe Alliance, the national trade association of the Technology Staffing and Solutions Industry. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment was down 1.46% from December 2021, a net of 79,700 jobs. The Engineering sector showed a year-over-year job growth rate of 3.59% with the addition of 96,200 jobs during the year and with an unemployment rate of 2.2% in Q4.
“While we all like to distill data to a simple narrative, reality is often more complicated,” said Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. ”As a national data point, we see a modest decline in overall IT employment when unemployment in IT occupations remains at historically low levels (2.1% as of Q4) with hundreds of thousands open IT positions. While the decline is clearly a reflection of the labor market churn that includes tech layoffs and a greater reluctance to add to direct headcount in some areas of the country and in some sectors, there remains a shortage of talent in many IT skill sets and strong demand persists in other parts of the economy.”
“The IT employment landscape is not monolithic. While we see a pullback among tech giants due to over hiring during the last few years, many IT positions go unfilled at other companies. Despite headwinds in some quarters, IT staffing with its inherent flexibility appears poised to continue to grow throughout 2023,” Roberts added.