The tech-industry unemployment rate has hit its lowest level in two years, according to a new analysis by CompTIA.
Based on data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), CompTIA has pegged the tech unemployment rate at 1.5 percent in July. “Beyond the headline figures, the underlying data tells a growth story of diverse hiring across tech occupation categories, industry sectors, employer types and locations,“ Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA, wrote in a statement accompanying the data. “It’s not one overriding factor, but a combination of factors contributing to tech employment growth.”
Within the tech industry, employment rose by 10,700 positions. Meanwhile, the broader U.S. economy added 178,000 technologist positions. Metro areas with the strongest demand included New York City, Dallas, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta—a healthy mix of mature tech hubs and up-and-comers with thriving tech scenes. some of the biggest names in tech (including Apple, Amazon, and Facebook) have secured large amounts of office space in Manhattan’s Midtown, suggesting that recent predictions of New York’s demise as a tech destination were very premature.
This positive trend in employment has been underway for some time. According to the Dice Q2 Tech Job Report, tech job postings were up 29 percent in the second quarter of 2021 over the pandemic-suppressed second quarter of 2020. Even more impressively, postings for the second quarter of 2021 were also up 9 percent over the second quarter of 2019. Tech hiring has risen within multiple industries, including defense, healthcare, and finance.
Although the summer months generally feature a dip in tech hiring (with echoes a generalized dip in hiring), 2021 isn’t a normal year, and it’ll be interesting to see whether these employment trends continue strongly though September and beyond. With employers hungry for tech talent, technologists everywhere have a good deal of leverage to negotiate the compensation and benefits they really want, including the ability to work remotely if they so choose.
