Communications of the ACM
It Jobs Are Growing, But Can It Last?
Credit: Inforbix
During the second quarter, total U.S. IT employment exceeded 4 million jobs, marking a return back to the employment levels of 2008. However, will the jobs momentum last? IT employment also hit 4 million in the second quarter of 2010, only to give back the job growth in the following quarters. In 2008, by comparison, there were three consecutive quarters with more than 4 million IT pros employed, before the fourth quarter erased nearly 260,000 IT jobs, a decline of more than 6%. With this in mind, the article takes a close look at current employment trends in the IT sector.
U.S. IT employment stood at 4.06 million in the second quarter, based on the cumulative employment estimates for 12 computer and software related job categories. That led to an IT unemployment rate of 3.4%, compared with unemployment of 4.4% for all managerial, professional, and related occupations. IT made up 7.7% of the 52.7 million managerial and professional jobs. At its highest point during the recession, IT unemployment was just over 6%.
A different IT jobs index from TechServe Alliance also shows growth last quarter for IT employment. That job index shows U.S. IT employment above 4 million (4.05 million), and nearly 133,000 new jobs since a year ago, but it shows almost no growth in June. Despite that, all signs point to the sector continuing to outperform the overall job market. Preliminary data from InformationWeek 500 includes one data point on IT spending that supports this growth view. Nearly 70% of companies expect to spend more this year than last year on IT, and just 11% plan to cut.
From Information Week
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