IT Job Growth Slows; Tech Sector Hiring Up
- By ANGUS LOTEN from the Wall Street Journal 3:54
- May 9, 2016
- 2 min read
U.S. technology firms hired more workers in April, while companies across all sectors scaled back IT jobs, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics by CompTIA.
Tech firms added a net 3,600 new jobs last month, up from 3,400 in March, the IT industry trade group reported Friday.
Despite the uptick, employment across the sector is growing at a slower pace, compared to the start of the year. In January, tech firms added 9,200 jobs, the report said. Total employment in the sector is now estimated at 4.37 million, including a total of 24,000 jobs added in the past four months, the group said.
Gains in April were led by IT services companies, which added 7,300 jobs, and were “powering job growth” in the tech sector, according to Tim Herbert, the group’s senior vice president of research and market intelligence. Computer and electronic products manufacturers also saw growth, adding 500 new jobs, the group said.
The gains were offset by ongoing declines among telecommunications firms, which cut 3,200 jobs in April. Data processing, hosting and related services firms, as well as search portals, also shed jobs.
All told, U.S. payrolls in all sectors rose by a seasonally adjusted 160,000 in April, the weakest increase since September, leaving the unemployment rate steady at 5%, the Labor Department said Friday.
The total number of IT occupation jobs – which CompTIA defines as IT workers at U.S. companies across all sectors – declined by 2.9% in April, to an estimated total of 4.548 million, according to the group’s analysis of the jobs data.
Job postings for IT workers also declined in April, by 17,200 from March, to 138,700, it said.
Among all IT job categories, demand was strongest for software and application developers, with 69,000 jobs postings last month, followed by computer systems engineers and developers, Web developers, computer systems analysts and IT project managers.
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