IT Pro unemployment rate high - Over 100K IT Pros unemployed – unemployment rate 4.1% for IT Pros
Unemployment Rate for IT Pros spikes up
National Unemployment Rate is 3.8% IT Pro Unemployment Rate Soars to 4.1% in August from 2.4% in July
(Park City UT – Janco Associates Inc. https://e-janco.com) – Janco reports that job market for IT Pros mixed as IT unemployment rate soars to 4.1%. - that despite almost 200K unfilled open requisitions. In July there were 64K unemployed IT Pros, In August there were 106K – a 65% increase. On the plus side 21,500 jobs were added to the IT job market in the last three months. Janco will be publishing it full set findings on Substack (https://itmanager.substack.com/).
National Unemployment Rate versus IT Pros Unemployment Rate
In January the report from the BLS the National Unemployment Rate was 3.7% versus 5.5% for IT Professionals.
There currently are over 96,000 unemployed IT professionals and the unemployment rate for IT professionals is slightly better than the national unemployment rate.
Latest YTD IT job market data - IT job Market Growth in Q1 2024 out performs Q1 2023
The CEO of Janco, M. Victor Janulaitis said, “Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are mixed. In the past three months, telecommunications lost 8,800 jobs (lost 29,600 in the last 12 months), content providers lost 3,000 jobs (lost 9,300 in the last 12 months), and other information services lost 1,300 jobs (lost 5,300 in the last 12 months). Gainers in the last three months, computer system designers gained 20,000 jobs (grew by 58,400 in the last 12 months), and hosting providers gained 14,600 jobs (grew by 25,400 jobs in the last 12 months). Currently, there are almost 200K unfilled jobs with over 100K IP Pros – a skills mismatch.”
AI is slowing the growth of many entry level positions within IT, especially in customer service, telecommunications, and hosting automation. CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible. They are focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers, staff, and services. Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities. The highest demand continues to be for AI, security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros.
Job Openings for IT Professionals
A major pullback of the number of excess jobs for IT Pros occurred in the 4th quarter of 2022 and continued through last quarter of 2023 - economic slowing and resulting layoffs have impacted on number of unfilled jobs available for IT Professionals. In December the number of unfilled jobs for IT Professionals fell.
In February there were 121K unemployed IT Professionals
He said, “There continues to be a general belief there will be an economic downturn by many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IP Pros and increasing technology-related expenditures. This has impacted the salaries of IT Pros (2023 Mid-Year Salary Survey) with a major impact on the compensation of IT Executives.
Updated with the latest data
The CEO added, “According to the latest BLS data analyzed, there are now just under 4.19 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US. Layoffs at big tech companies hurt overall IT hiring. CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations.”
IT Job Market Flat for FY 2024
There now are approximately 96K unemployed IT Professionals. The IT job market shrank by over 48,600 jobs in CY 2023. Overall that is a flattening of the long term growth rate pattern of IT job market.
Data complied and forecast updated by Janco Associates with data as of April 2024
With this as a background, Janco revised its forecasts for the growth of the IT Job Market in 2023 by 20K to 30K range. That will be less growth than in 2021 and 2022, but still with some growth in the latter half of this year.
To assist in managing these troubled times, Janco has just released the 2023 edition CIO Management Tool Kit. See https://e-janco.com/it-management-toolkit.html. This tool kit has been updated to reflect changes to the IT Infrastructure caused by compliance mandates and the current economic environment - including WFH and Cloud processing. It meets all the mandated security requirements and best practices.
Janulaitis said, “Many of the issues faced by the economy continue to be due to ongoing supply chain problems. If China opens fully, overall supply chains should improve but will take several months to completely recover. That should lessen the recessionary pressures that are driving companies to reduce staff.”
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