Monday Morning Impact – November 20

CompTIA: Tech job gains higher than expected in October

Technology employment grew in October, offsetting the national narrative of a cooling jobs market, reports CompTIA, a suburban Chicago-based trade association.

Tech industry companies added an estimated 2,159 workers in October, according to CompTIA’s analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. New hiring in tech services and custom software development powered job growth, a continuation of the trend for much of the year. Tech occupations across the economy increased by an estimated 483,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for tech occupations stands at 2.1%, compared to the national unemployment rate of 3.9%.

“Fair to say tech employment gains for the month exceeded expectations given the recent labor market swings,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “Companies continue to focus on the technologies and skills that deliver meaningful business value.”

Employer hiring activity as measured by job postings totaled more than 167,000 for the month and more than 2.2 million year-to-date. Software developers, IT support specialists, systems analysts and data scientists are among the job roles in greatest demand. Employer hiring for artificial intelligence positions and skills continues to trend upward, although still a relatively small share of overall tech hiring activity.

California, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and New York had the highest volumes of tech job postings among the states. At the metro level, Washington, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago has the largest totals of job postings. Washington has been the top metro area for tech job postings for five consecutive months, and seven of the past 10 months. The Charlotte, Boston, San Diego, Cleveland, and Phoenix markets were also active in October, with month-over-month increases in employer postings for tech job openings.

About 20% of job postings offered work from home or remote work as an option. One-quarter were for positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills, including 16,000 associated with artificial intelligence jobs and skills.

Channel Impact^®
Despite near continuous reports of layoffs in the tech industry, the numbers tend to fare well, compared to many other industries.

HPE Partner Launches “As-A-Service” Program Upgrade

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has announced updates to its “Partner Ready Vantage” program, which is designed to augment partners in the delivery of as-a-service solutions.

New features include a Rapid migration tool, which integrates HPE’s consulting experiences, automation, and tools to enable end-to-end application migration to hybrid cloud. Currently, VMware migrations are available, with additional capabilities to come. The tool is available to partners that are enrolled in the Professional Services Center of Expertise.

In addition, partners are now able to layer their own services and customization on top of HPE GreenLake. This experience is available to partners that are enrolled in the Managed Services Center of Expertise.

The company has also expanded its consulting services for HPE Aruba Networking, which include business planning and service discovery workshops for Solution Providers and Managed Service Providers, guided walk-throughs on developing NaaS or HPE Aruba Networking as-a-service business plans, and a new practice accelerator tool to help partners assess the strength and maturity of their HPE Aruba Networking NaaS managed services practice. These services are available to partners that are enrolled in the Customer Success or Managed Services Center of Expertise.

Additional Aruba resources and training have also been added for partners that are enrolled in the As-a-Service Center of Expertise. Various Competencies, serving topics such as Edge, Hybrid Cloud, and AI, have also been updated.

“Partners can now leverage HPE’s IP, tools, and resources to further enable business growth and increase revenue across the HPE GreenLake as-a-service portfolio as customers look to them to deploy solutions to enhance and manage their information and data,” said Simon Ewington, Vice President of Worldwide Channel & Partner Ecosystem at HPE.

HPE Partner Ready Vantage is now open and available to all partners.

Channel Impact^®
The updated competency framework is expected to better support partner expertise across Edge, Hybrid Cloud, and AI.

Acronis Rolls Out MSP Learning Initiative

Acronis, a Swiss-based cybersecurity company, has announced the launch of its new MSP Academy, an extension of its training initiatives to assist other categories of the service provider community.

The MSP Academy’s curriculum is crafted to offer training covering all aspects of managing an MSP business delivered in bite-sized modules ranging from three to seven minutes. Participants can take an exam to receive credentials demonstrating successful completion. The training covers various topics, from starting an MSP, running a successful MSP business, marketing an MSP business, and optimizing the efficiency and productivity of MSP technicians.

“MSP Academy offers a customized education experience, allowing learners to explore specific topics or follow a structured learning path,” said Jon McCarrick, Director of Evangelism at Acronis. “The rapidly evolving technology and business landscape requires ongoing learning, and MSP Academy is designed to support the growing needs of MSPs.”

Upcoming initiatives from Acronis include delivery of hybrid boot camps in collaboration with cloud distributors, providing an immersive learning experience to keep learners at the forefront of industry advancements, and launching new online, hybrid, and offline multilingual training options, ensuring that MSPs across the world can benefit from the program.

The company claims that Acronis partners that went through training and certification through the Academy in 2022 saw a 60% increase in revenue from Acronis product sales and a reduction in support incidents by 40%.

Channel Impact^®
The academy is an educational initiative aimed to provide managed service providers (MSPs) with business and technological knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to excel and grow.