Dive Brief:
- Employers sought to fill 317,000 tech roles in October, up 10,000 from the previous month and reversing a five-month slump, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
- Tech occupation unemployment grew slightly to 2.2%, up from 2.1% in the previous month, according to the IT trade group. The trend tracks with the growth of national unemployment, which also increased from 3.5% in September to 3.7% in October.
- Software development and engineering roles, IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and network engineers were among the top tech roles employers sought to fill in September.
Dive Insight:
With companies such as Lyft and Stripe reducing their workforce this week — and others freezing hiring projections, technology talent dynamics are in flux as executives weigh economic projections.
Yet enterprise focus on sustaining technology continues unabated, as shown by the resilience of IT budgets. Companies globally will devote $4.6 trillion to enterprise IT in 2023, according to Gartner projections, a 5.1% year-over-year increase.
When it comes to tech talent, businesses are planning for flexibility in case gloomy economic forecasts come true.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the first three quarters of 2022," said M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of IT consulting firm Janco, in an email.
With an eye toward improving the productivity of IT, leaders will focus on increasing productivity and eliminating non-essential managers and staff, Janulaitis said.
"Much of the hiring will be limited to filling positions which have been approved and are unfilled, not staff expansion," said Janulaitis in an email.
The balance is tricky, as failure to reach a balance between technology needs and resources can derail innovation. Nearly 3 in 5 digital leaders say finding talent prevents them from keeping pace with change, according to data from Harvey Nash.
