Tech hiring continues upward trend despite underwhelming national employment growth

While the overall hiring numbers for the United States have not been stellar over the past few months, there has been a steady rise in hiring within the tech industry according to industry trade association CompTIA. The adding of jobs last month marked the 13th consecutive month that tech employment experienced growth at the industry level.

Tech companies added 11,000 jobs during the month of December, trending in a positive direction even as the overall economy produced job numbers generally viewed as underwhelming, according to the CompTIA report. Tech employment throughout the economy increased by 180,000 positions as the unemployment rate for IT jobs dropped to just 2%. 

By comparison, the unemployment rate for the U.S. overall currently sits at 3.9%.

Since the previous jobs report in November, employers have posted an additional 332,564 job openings, 22,500 more than reported in November and the highest monthly total since the COVID-19 pandemic began affecting employment following March 2020. 

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“This undoubtedly sounds like a broken record, but there is no escaping the influence the pandemic continues to exert over hiring decisions and business investments,” said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA. “Adaptation remains a driving force for organizations expanding their tech workforces in areas such as cloud infrastructure, remote support, data science and cybersecurity.” 

Within the tech sector, December showed an upward trend in the IT services and custom software development occupation category, as 10,200 positions were added within that area of employment. Other specific functions that saw additional growth were recorded in the categories of other information services, including search engines, with 1,900 being added in that sector and an additional 1,600 postings being added within the field of data processing, hosting and related services. 

The only major fields within tech to see a decline in employment during this reporting period were in the areas of electronics manufacturing and IT software and system design, with the two decreasing by 900 jobs each.

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Companies experiencing the largest hiring numbers within the tech field during this time included Humana, Deloitte, Anthem Blue Cross, Accenture and General Dynamics.

With so many remote working opportunities being available due to the pandemic, the only job function to see a significant downturn these work from home postings during this time were web developers, as the area fell by 1,641 postings during December. The biggest risers within this scope were IT support specialists and software developers, with each of these roles adding more than 1,400 job postings each during last month’s hiring cycle. Workers searching for jobs in major metropolitan areas were the biggest winners during this time, as large cities saw the biggest increase in work opportunities. Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta each added over 11,000 jobs in December, marking a surge in the availability of tech positions.

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