Read CompTIA’s analysis of a recent tech jobs report and learn Satya Nadella’s predictions for the next two years in the industry.
Despite the layoffs in recent months, technology companies have added 17,600 employees by December 2022, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Which tech sectors have added jobs?
There were job gains in four of the five industry categories and December was the 25th consecutive month of net employment growth in the technology industry, according to CompTIA’s analysis of the BLS report. The four sectors that gained jobs in December 2022 are:
- Production of PCs, semiconductors and components, with 1,096,100 jobs.
- Data processing, hosting and related cloud services, with 439,900 jobs.
- Other information services and search portals, with 444,900 jobs.
- IT and custom software services/system design, with 2,461,800 jobs.
Telecommunications – with 657,000 jobs in that sector in December last year – saw a drop of 2,500 from November.
Employers added an estimated 130,000 tech workers in December, pushing the unemployment rate of tech occupations down to 1.8%, compared to the overall national rate of 3.5%, CompTIA said.
Where are the tech jobs?
Most requested tech jobs
The number of technical hiring vacancies fell for the second consecutive month, but still exceeded 246,000 in December.
“A new wave of positive tech employment data speaks to the many moving parts of a complex job market,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Despite the layoffs, there are still more employers hiring tech talent than shedding it.”
Among the industrial sectors, professional, scientific and technical services (38,654), finance and insurance (33,538), and manufacturing (26,763) reported the most activity.
CompTIA’s analysis shows that 30% of all tech job openings are in emerging technologies, such as AI, or those that require new technical skills. Software developer and engineer positions accounted for nearly 30% of last month’s job openings. IT support specialists, IT project managers, system engineers and network engineers were also in high demand.
Within the technical sector, three occupational categories determined hiring in December: IT services and custom software development (+7,200), other information services such as search engines (+6,600) and data processing, hosting and related services (+5,600).
Cities and states with the most tech job openings
Washington, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas led the list of metropolitan markets with the most tech job openings, while the cities of Richmond, Virginia, Tallahassee, Florida, Lansing, Michigan and Las Vegas had the largest month-to-month increases of job opportunities for employers, according to CompTIA.
The top states for AI job openings in December were California, Virginia, Texas, Massachusetts, and New York — with the exception of Virginia, the other four states saw declines in AI job openings from November.
What about tech layoffs?
Recent layoff announcements by tech companies may not immediately appear in government reports, such as Friday’s BLS “Employment Situation” report, CompTIA warned.
Last week, Salesforce announced that it plans to reduce its workforce by 10%, or approximately 7,000 employees. The company is also closing a number of offices. In addition, Amazon has said it will also cut 18,000 jobs starting next week, which is about 6% of the company’s 300,000 total workforce. Other tech companies that have laid off staff include Meta, Cisco and Twitter.
The news isn’t all bad: Amazon’s AWS cloud business plans to add new employees this year despite the layoffs in the larger organization, and AI software company Aisera announced plans to add 40 to 50 new employees in Q1 2023.
Microsoft’s Nadella predicts a bumpy road for technology
Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella issued a warning last week, saying the technology sector needs to be prepared for another two bumpy years before it can grow again. In October 2022, Microsoft announced plans to lay off employees.
In the long run, Nadella said, growth prospects for tech companies will be strong thanks to emerging technologies like AI.
The current downturn the tech industry is feeling is happening as demand, boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is starting to slow down. Combined with a recession in various parts of the world, this has led to a “normalization”, according to Nadella.
