According to the September 2022 CompTIA Tech Jobs Report, the IT unemployment rate was at 2.3% in August. The increase from 1.7% the previous month likely was because the overall US unemployment rate increased. Also, large IT companies laid off employees. Plus, many IT employees left their jobs for other opportunities.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) Economic News Release for August 2022 showed 3.97 million available IT jobs. Like the past 24 months, this trend is expected to continue.
As a result, the competition for IT talent should remain tight. Fortunately, partnering with an IT staffing firm can ease recruiting concerns.
Learn more about the current state of IT recruiting and how RightStone can alleviate your IT staffing concerns.
IT Job Openings
CompTIA stated that the IT industry added 175,700 jobs so far in 2022. This is 46% ahead of last year’s job gains.
Job postings for IT roles were slightly under 320,000 in August. Thirty-one percent of these jobs were in artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, data analytics, and automation software.
IT job postings from January through August 2022 increased by 56% over last year. This shows remote work likely will remain semi-permanent.
Slower IT Hiring
The pace of IT hiring likely will slow due to the recession. CIOs are unsure of how the economic downturn may impact their bottom line. Some businesses stopped hiring and began laying off employees.
An average of 200,000 IT roles remains unfilled due to a lack of qualified candidates. According to the Mid-Year 2022 IT Salary Survey by Janco Associates, Inc., many roles are paying up to 10% higher salaries to attract the best talent.
However, this disparity is causing current employees with lower salaries to find different employers. As a result, CIOs must find a balance between the budget, employee salary increases to address inflation, and the resources needed to attain the technology and bottom-line objectives.
IT Education Requirements
Approximately 20% of IT job postings in July 2022 were for roles requiring 2 years of experience or less. Also, nearly 50% required 3-5 years of experience. Plus, 13% of the positions required at least 9 years of experience.
Many employers no longer are requiring college degrees for some of their IT job openings. Candidates’ skills, experience, and personality traits are becoming more important than their educational background. This increases the candidate pools for open roles.
Software developers and engineers are especially in-demand. There were approximately 148,000 job postings for these roles in July 2022. IT support specialists, project managers, systems engineers and architects, and network engineers and architects also are in short supply.
Roles in emerging technologies or roles requiring these skills accounted for 33% of job postings in July. Many companies began hiring IT professionals through coding boot camps, low-code training, and other non-traditional approaches.
Get Help with IT Recruiting
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