Dive Brief:
- The number of postings for technologists grew 25% year-over-year during the first ten months of 2022, according to a Tuesday report by tech career marketplace Dice. The report analyzed tech job postings from January through October.
- While listings fell as the economy slowed in Q2 and Q3, the overall number of job postings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with all but five states experiencing year-over-year increases.
- Tech job listings spiked early in the year to over 450,000 and then dipped below 400,000 in August and September, the report said. After two months of decline, postings rebounded with a 3% increase in October.
Dive Insight:
Big-name tech companies — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — generated recent headlines with high profile hiring slowdowns and layoffs. But tech sector upheavals have had a negligible impact on the market for talent, as tech-reliant companies in the financial sector, retail, defense contracting and consulting have picked up the slack.
Unemployment for tech workers remains low and job postings correspondingly high. The economy added nearly 140,000 tech jobs in November, as the unemployment rate for tech workers dipped to 2%.
“What we're hearing from our customers across the board is that it's a difficult situation where the demand for technologists is roughly two-times the actual supply,” said Art Zeile, president and CEO of Dice’s parent company DHI Group, in an interview with CIO Dive.
Engineering and data skills were in particularly high demand, according to the report.
Software engineers were the most in-demand tech professionals by job postings volume. Similarly, the number of postings for software development engineers increased by nearly 140% since 2021.
Data analyst, scientist and engineer all experienced growth of more than 40%, landing all three positions near the top for number of postings during the period analyzed.
Demand for software developers, by contrast, remained relatively flat, suggesting a shift to maintaining and enhancing existing technology rather than pure innovation, the report said.
Businesses have not slowed down migrating applications from private data centers to the cloud, according to Zeile. This accounts, in part, for the disparity in demand for engineers over developers.
Agile methodology, SQL, Python, automation and Java were the top five individual skills sought by employers, reflecting a focus on data analytics, efficiency gains and optimization.
Companies are leaning on automation to relieve pressure on other parts of their workforce, Zeile said.
The final two months of the year generally see decreased activity through the holiday season, followed by a January bump, the report said.
