Dive Brief:

• Boosted by demand in service-based models, companies in the tech industry added close to 26,800 workers to their ranks in August, according to a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data from IT trade group CompTIA.
• The uptick in hiring marks the largest monthly gain in tech industry jobs since November 2018, CompTIA found. The industry has added 120,000 positions year to date.
• Unemployment among technology occupations remains well below the national average. While unemployment among IT occupations was at 1.5% last month, national unemployment fell slightly to 5.2%, from 5.4% the previous month.

Dive Insight:

If software rules the business world, as Marc Andreessen proposed a decade ago, the need for technologists has nowhere to go but up. The impact of software across industry has benefited tech companies, delivering massive growth for software providers.

The tech industry is on the upswing, boosted by the widespread adoption of service-based models. Ease of deployment and familiarity with the paradigm lead to compounding growth in multiple verticals, including cloud and software bundles. 

"The broader macro trend is the ongoing shift towards the intersection of hardware, infrastructure, software and data, which is then delivered via some form of an 'as-a-service' model," said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA, in an email.

That said, market conditions still apply — and tech hiring across other areas of business responds to the ebb and flow of industry. Tech job numbers across all industries contracted by 334,000 positions in August, a trend that could be reflecting the industry impacts of a Delta variant surge.

"Many labor market commenters cited the Delta variant as contributing to the disappointing jobs report (at least nationally), so it is a factor, but difficult to determine the net effect in tech hiring in the short-term," Herbert said.

While unemployment in tech positions remains considerably low, employers are still struggling to retain workers. More than nine in 10 executives from the technology, media and telecom industries say attrition levels are higher than usual, according to PwC data.

It's a tight labor market for tech talent overall, and experts suggest upskilling or retraining the existing workforce could have positive effects on a company's ability to keep up with demand.