CompTIA: Tech Employment Continues on the Upswing

New employment data shows that employers continue to grow their technology teams, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit IT trade association based in suburban Chicago.

Tech sector companies added 25,500 net new workers in August, with growth in five major occupation categories, based on CompTIA’s analysis of recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Tech industry employment has increased by 175,700 jobs in 2022 and is tracking 46% ahead of last year and 92% ahead of 2019.

Companies throughout the economy added an estimated 21,000 tech workers for the month. The unemployment rate for tech occupations edged up to 2.3% paralleling the directional change of the national unemployment rate (3.7%).

Tech industry employment gains now extends to 21 consecutive months

“Stability in tech hiring continues to be an over-arching theme this year,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “Despite all the economic noise and pockets of layoffs, aggregate tech hiring remains consistently positive.”

Employer job postings for tech positions eased back in August, coming in at just under 320,000. Companies are seeking a range of tech skills, including software development and engineering, IT support, IT project management, systems engineering and network engineering.

Among industries, the largest numbers of job postings occurred in professional, scientific, and technical services, finance and insurance, manufacturing, information, and retail trade. Employment opportunities in tech are available across the country, in markets large, medium, and small. The New York City, Washington, Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles metro areas had the most job postings for tech positions, while Allentown (PA), Raleigh (NC) and Columbus (OH) recorded the largest month-over-month increases in tech job postings.

CompTIA’s analysis also shows that options for remote work and work from home continue to increase for technology workers. From January through August 2022, tech job postings where employers specify remote work is up 56% over last year and 281% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

Within the tech sector, new hiring in the IT services and custom software development occupation category, which expanded by 14,400 workers, paced August’s job gains. Solid growth also occurred in computer and electronic products manufacturing (+4,500), data processing, hosting, and related services (+3,200) and other information services, including search engines (+3,000). Telecommunications jobs increased by a modest 400.

Channel Impact^®
The data reaffirms tech’s essential role in powering business and industry and reinforces the opportunity for the indirect sales channel.