Labor Supply Constraints Evident as Pace of Tech Hiring Eases, CompTIA Analysis of Monthly Jobs Report Finds
388,000 Employer Job Postings Confirm Strong Demand for Tech Talent
Tech employment and new job postings remain on a positive trajectory even as employers eased back on hiring in February, according to analysis of the latest labor market data by CompTIA, the non-profit association for the information technology (IT) industry and workforce.
Technology companies added 5,300 new workers in February, the 15th consecutive month of employment growth for the sector. Through the first two months of 2022 tech industry employment has increased by an estimated 20,600 positions.
Tech occupations throughout the economy grew by 1,000 positions.1 Positive gains have occurred in five of the past six months.
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Employer job postings for tech occupations approached nearly 388,000 last month, an increase of more than 50,000 from January.2 Job posting volumes over the past three months exceeded one million.
“The record-level of employer job postings for the month and a pause in actual new tech hires is a clear sign of the ongoing labor supply problem,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “Employers want to hire more tech workers but can only do so when there are workers to hire.”
Openings for software developers and engineers are in highest demand, according to the latest job postings data analyzed by CompTIA. Employers are also seeking IT support specialists, IT project managers, network engineers and architects, and systems engineers and architects in strong numbers. Openings for positions in emerging technologies or roles requiring some level of emerging tech skills are cited in 32% of all core IT job postings.
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Tech employment opportunities span the country, from New York (20,342 job postings) and Boston (10,448) to Los Angeles (17,879) and Seattle (10,850). The Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco and San Jose metro markets each saw the number of tech job postings increase by more than 2,300 from January to February. Markets such as Boise (71% increase), St. Louis (53%), Colorado Springs (45%), and Kansas City (42%) also experienced significant month over month jumps in the number of job openings for tech workers.
Among industries, professional, scientific and technical services (60,263), finance and insurance (54,736) and manufacturing (42,198) listed the most tech job openings.
Within the tech sector February hiring was paced by the IT services and custom software development (+4,500) and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+3,100) categories. Those gains were offset by staffing rollbacks in telecommunications (-1,500) and data processing, hosting and related services (-1,000). Hiring in the category of other information services, including search engines was essentially flat (+200).
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