Tech employment holds steady as job growth slows and AI-driven roles surge

The unemployment rate for technology workers changed little last month, according to an analysis of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) latest lackluster jobs report.

Overall, US employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday; that was well short of the 115,000 jobs expected.

IT unemployment rose slightly from 2.8% in June to 2.9% in July, according to an analysis of jobs data by the nonprofit trade association CompTIA. The overall national unemployment rate inched up 0.1% to 4.2%. It has remained between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024, according to BLS data.

US tech hiring had jumped in June, when 90,000 jobs were added. But that changed last month, as employers throughout the economy added just 54,000 tech workers to their payrolls — and tech industry companies shed more than 10,000 jobs, according to CompTIA’s “Tech Jobs Report.”

Staffing reductions were concentrated in three primary areas: IT and custom software services, cloud infrastructure, and telecommunications, according to CompTIA.

Compared to June, active tech job listings in July dropped 3% and new listings fell 8%. Highest-demand roles included software developers, systems engineers, tech support workers, cybersecurity, and network engineers. AI job listings remained flat, but CompTIA’s AI Hiring Index shows growing demand for roles needing AI skills.

Kye Mitchell, head of IT staffing firm Experis North America, said tech jobs are rapidly shifting as AI and data innovation grow. Roles such as database architects and data scientists have surged by 1,069% and 215% year-over-year, respectively.

Automation is also reshaping IT, creating demand for experts in machine learning, big data, and AI — and requiring new leadership roles in the finance and legal industries, with a focus on ethical AI. “AI is redefining both the entry point into tech and the evolution of existing roles,” Mitchell said. “For tech professionals willing to upskill and adapt, this is a moment of unprecedented opportunity to lead in helping to shape the AI-powered workforce of tomorrow.”

While job postings for open tech positions dropped from June to July, they still totaled more than 440,000 postings. “In an environment where uncertainty is the norm, the latest tech employment data is a welcome mix of some reasonably positive measures, and then of course, some lagging measures,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer.

IT consultancy Janco Associates, which has been less bullish on tech sector job growth, pegged the IT unemployment rate at 5.5%, but predicted that will drop by more than a percentage point in upcoming months due to an impending economic upturn.

Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis expects openings for IT jobs to grow in late 2025, especially at smaller businesses preparing for new federal budgets and tariffs. He praised President Donald J. Trump’s budget bill, which was signed into law last month, as a potential shot in the arm for job creation and business profits.

“CFOs and CIOs are more optimistic,” Janulaitis said. “The number of unemployed IT pros is at 143,000, and the number of open IT positions is just under 244,000. Gas prices are lower, and the rate of inflation is around 2% versus the 9% peak several quarters back.”

Most of the unfilled IT jobs the BLS reported are tied to AI, large language models (LLMs), blockchain, and what’s called “OmniCommerce” — integrated shopping across multiple channels, including brick-and-mortar stores, online sites and mobile apps.

Despite his view that the broader economy could benefit from Trump’s spending plans, Janulaitis was critical of the BLS’s reporting methods. The agency last week released revised data for earlier months showing dramatically different job numbers, which Janulaitis said lack “integrity” and are “unacceptable.”

“Adjustments at those levels of magnitude are not acceptable from any organization. It can only be due to poor data capture, poor infrastructure, incompetence, or political gerrymandering,” Janulaitis said. While Janco plans to continue to report BLS data, he said his firm is in the process of redoin” its IT Job Market forecasting models to include “other public and private data.”

Trump himself was so outraged by the revised figures, which indicated a slowing economy, that he summarily fired the head of the BLS on Friday.Tech employment holds steady as job growth slows and AI-driven roles surge – ComputerworldRead More