Hiring of IT Pros Slows as IT Job Market shrinks by 5,500 YTD
IT job market shrank by 5,500 jobs YTD versus growing by 125,900 jobs in 2022
BLS adjusts up the number of IT Pros hired in May and June by 6,400
(Park City UT – Janco Associates Inc. https://e-janco.com) – Janco reports that YTD, the IT job markets shrank by 5,500 jobs YTD 2023. That is in contrast with 125,900 jobs that were created in the same period of 2022. The number of unfilled jobs for IT Pros shrank from 200K plus in December to just over 120K at the end of July.
Janco has revised its forecast for the IT Job market down by over 40K to 20K-30K from 60K-70K for the calendar year 2023.
The growth of the IT job market stopped in January with a loss of 2,600. For five of the six months of 2023, the IT job market has shrunk. On the plus side, there is an excess of 120K unfilled jobs for IT Pros due to a lack of qualified candidates.
The CEO of Janco, M. Victor Janulaitis said, “Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best. In the 2nd Quarter of 2023, the big losers were computer system design losing 10,500 jobs, telecommunication losing 5,500 jobs, content providers losing 4,700 jobs and other information service providers losing 6,600 jobs The only gains were for cloud and hosting providers adding 3,800 jobs. Some roles, especially in telecommunications and data center operations are being automated and eliminated. Driving this is, CIOs and CFOs who are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible. They are focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers and staff. Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities. The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros. Currently, there are over 120K unfilled jobs.”
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IT Job Market Size Adjustments - Prior Two Months
BLS reduced the number of jobs for IT Pros by 17,900 jobs for the prior two months - Note last month the BLS had adjusted the same number by an additional 3,000 for a total adjustment of 20,900 - that means the current month reported IT job market growth is overstated.
Before adjustments
After Adjustments
September initially showed that only 1,200 jobs had been lost with the prior adjustments. With the current adjustments 20,700 jobs were lost. Over the last 3 years, adjustments of this magnitude have been common.
Change In IT Job Market Size - October 2024
7,300 IT Jobs have been added in the last 12 months while 21,900 jobs were removed in the last 3 months.
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The CEO of Janco, M. Victor Janulaitis said, “Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best. In the past three months, telecommunications lost 5,500 jobs (lost 26,300 in the last 12 months), content providers lost 3,500 jobs (lost 5,800 in the last 12 months), and other information services lost 2,100 jobs (lost 2,200 in the last 12 months). On the bright side in the last three months, computer system designers gained 16,600 jobs (grew by 52,500 in the last 12 months), and hosting providers gained 4,000 jobs (grew by 25,700 jobs in the last 12 months).
Many roles, especially in telecommunications and cloud providers are being automated and eliminated. CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible. They are focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers, staff, and services. Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities. The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros. Currently, there are over 120K unfilled jobs. As part of this ROI improvement effort, CIOs are looking to consolidate the cloud service providers they support. This will impact the job prospects at those providers.”
Job Openings for IT Professionals
A major pullback of the number of excess jobs for IT Pros occurred in the 4th quarter of 2022 and continued through last quarter of 2023 - economic slowing and resulting layoffs have impacted on number of unfilled jobs available for IT Professionals. In December the number of unfilled jobs for IT Professionals fell.
In October there were 71K unemployed IT Professionals with an IT Unemployment rate of 2.7%
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He said, “There continues to be a general belief there will be an economic downturn by many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IP Pros and increasing technology-related expenditures. This has impacted the salaries of IT Pros (2023 Mid-Year Salary Survey) with a major impact on the compensation of IT Executives.
Updated with the latest data
The CEO added, “According to the latest BLS data analyzed, there are now just under 4.19 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US. Layoffs at big tech companies hurt overall IT hiring. CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations.”
IT Job Market will have shrunk by an average of 4,900 jobs in CY 2024
There are approximately 71K unemployed IT Professionals. The IT job market shrank by over 48,600 jobs in CY 2023. Overall that is a flattening of the long-term growth rate pattern of the IT job market. Based on our data and forecast models, there will be no growth in the IT Job Market in the calendar year 2024.
Data complied and forecast updated by Janco Associates with data as of October 2024
With this as a background, Janco revised its forecasts for the growth of the IT Job Market in 2023 by 15K to 20K range. That will be less growth than in 2021 and 2022, but still with some growth in the latter half of this year. To assist in managing these troubled times, Janco has just released the 2023 edition CIO Management Tool Kit. See https://e-janco.com/it-management-toolkit.html. This tool kit has been updated to reflect changes to the IT Infrastructure caused by compliance mandates and the current economic environment - including WFH and Cloud processing. It meets all the mandated security requirements and best practices.
Janulaitis said, “Many of the issues faced by the economy continue to be due to ongoing supply chain problems. If China opens fully, overall supply chains should improve but will take several months to completely recover. That should lessen the recessionary pressures that are driving companies to reduce staff.”
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