Employers in US eliminated 96,000 IT or information-technology jobs in May, according to an analysis by industry trade body CompTIA.
This brought down overall IT employment to an estimated 4.5 million workers as of May 31, the trade group said.
The disappointing reading in IT jobs follows grim overall employment number reported by the US for the month of May. Overall, non-farm payrolls increased by only 38,000 jobs last month – the fewest number of jobs added in more than five years.
“Much like the rest of the May jobs report, it was a down month for both IT sector and IT occupation employment,” said Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence, CompTIA.
For its analysis, CompTIA breaks down the IT workforce into two components: employment within the IT sector and IT occupations across all other industries.
“The IT sector is the largest employer of IT occupation workers. IT occupation employment declined in May by 96,000 jobs and stood at an estimated 4.45 million at the end of the month,” the trade body said in a statement.
The number of IT occupation job postings also registered a fall in May, totalling 115,000, down 21,100 from April, CompTIA said. More than half of the total job postings – 58,700 – was for software and application developer positions, it added.
Other categories for job postings included computer systems engineers and architects (15,500), computer systems analysts (13,900), IT project managers (13,700) and computer user support specialists (13,200).
However, the bright spot in May was the IT services category, which added 7,400 jobs, the trade body said. From May 2015 to May 2016, employment in IT services has increased by 86,700 jobs, it added.
“The data indicates some employers are holding off on adding additional headcount or reassessing their IT skills needs,” CompTIA said.
[“source-ndtv”]
