Dive Brief:
- The IT unemployment rate reached 2.3% in December, up from 1.7% in the previous month, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published Friday. National unemployment remained unchanged at 3.7%.
- Technology roles across sectors of the economy fell again in December, as employers shed 79,000 positions. By contrast, employers in the tech industry added nearly 13,000 new positions in December, marking the largest monthly increase since April.
- “Despite the ongoing pattern of mixed signals in the labor market tracking data, the optimistic outlook continues to hold,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, in the report.
Dive Insight:
Despite month-to-month variations in tech employment data last year, the majority of technology workers continued to find employment — even those impacted by layoff waves that landed scores of their peers without a job.
In 2023, January brought news of high profile workforce cuts across tech providers. Salesforce, Microsoft and Google were among the businesses cutting tens of thousands of roles, citing an economic pullback.
The first week of 2024 did not deliver such widespread workforce cuts, though Xerox did announce a 15% headcount reduction impacting approximately 3,000 people as part of a broader restructuring effort.
Demand for talent is expected to keep growing in 2024, industry watchers say.
This year, executives will be looking closely at whether or not they have access to enough talent to keep up with innovation plans, according to Ken Englund, Americas industry markets leaders for technology, media and telecommunications at consulting firm EY.
“The net need for talent is going to continue to increase,” Englund said.
