Dive Brief 

• Amazon and Walmart are leading the tech world in hiring at the midway point of 2018, according to a report by IEEE Spectrum, a magazine from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
• In April, Amazon announced the addition of 3,000 cloud computing and machine learning engineers at its expanded facility in Vancouver, Canada. The e-commerce giant also said it planned to grow its Dublin, Ireland, Amazon Web Services offices by adding 1,000 software and development engineers, according to IEEE Spectrum. Walmart will add 2,000 new tech workers to its Walmart Labs unit.
• Other tech players, however, are downsizing. HP will cut 5,000 jobs between 2018-2019 across a range of categories. Tesla will cut 3,000 salaried employees but manufacturing staff will reportedly not be among the losses, IEEE Spectrum reported. At IBM's Watson Health Division, 50% to 70% of the staff who joined IBM through acquisitions were laid off this past May.

Dive Insight:

Despite the struggle to find qualified candidates, there's still a boom in tech hiring with e-commerce giants leading the charge. Although some say the dearth of qualified candidates has caused growth in tech to hit a wall, in-demand tech like AI are also poised to expand head count with huge demands for engineers.

Walmart's 2,000 new hires is in addition to its already 6,000 existing technologists. The retailer is looking for experts in data science, engineering and product management, with most of the those roles reserved for the Walmart Labs division. 

But hiring technologists for retailers and other nontraditional tech companies can be burdensome because applicants don't initially view them as tech companies. 

As AI becomes a cornerstone of online concierge services like the ones Walmart is pursuing, potential hires will have no choice but to look at how brands are increasing their attractiveness through tech. Still, Google and Microsoft are the top choices for the most sought-after companies in the U.S. 

Companies outside of Silicon Valley, as well as the public sector, have to work to defend their place and relevancy for tech talent. The public sector struggles with retaining employees when the private sector can offer more money and more experimental opportunities. 

The labor market of tomorrow will depend heavily on the technology that's changing the way we live and work. Businesses looking to hire are taking a creative approach to the marketplace — expanding their reach and working with tech partners to train existing staff and potential hires.