Tech hiring slows, more IT jobs lost

CompTIA estimates that across the entire economy, tech occupations declined by 14,000 and the unemployment rate for tech occupations was at about 3.2% in July, slightly lower than the national unemployment rate of 4.3%. Among 471,000 active employer job postings for tech positions, some 176,324 were categorized as new postings added in July, according to CompTIA’s Tech Jobs Report analysis.

Demand was high for software developers and software engineers, as well as IT project managers, data analysts, data scientists, and tech support specialists. In addition, CompTIA reports that for the month of July, 46% of active technology job postings did not specify a four-year degree requirement among candidates, pointing to a trend toward skills-based hiring. Key occupations that recorded higher percentages that did not specify a four-year degree include network support specialists (87%), IT support specialists (72%), network and systems administrators (52%), and database administrators (50%).

Janco Associates also analyzed the latest U.S. BLS data and found that unemployed IT pros are finding it difficult to land jobs at their previous compensation and the hiring process is taking several months between landing an initial interview to receiving a job offer.