IT Job Market Shrinks by 12,000 in the last 3 months - 101K Unemployed IT Pros
CIOs are selectively pruning low skilled IT Pros
Park City - UT - e-janco.com Janco reports that
job market for IT Pros took a turn for the worse with 101,000 unemployed in November - at the same time, there are 100K unfilled open requisitions for IT Professionals. On the bright side, October showed an increase in the number of job openings (172K) from 133K in September. Janco will be publishing it full set findings on Substack (https://itmanager.substack.com/).
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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The BLS made major adjustment in the number of IT jobs initially report for September and October. They adjusted down the number of jobs initially added in September (removed 7,700 jobs) and October (removed 12,200).
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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National Unemployment Rate versus IT Pros Unemployment Rate
In October the BLS reported the National Unemployment Rate was 4.1% and 2.7% for IT Professionals.
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BLS IT Job Market Size Adjustments - Prior Two Months
BLS increased the number of jobs for IT Pros by 1,500 jobs for the prior two months. This is the first time in 15 months they have increased the number of jobs for the prior two months.
IT Job Market Change - November 2024
IT Job Market grew by 3,000 jobs last month - lost 17,900 jobs YTD
Updated with the data from the BLS and Janco Associates Inc as of November 2024 Analysis shows that IT Job Market has shrunk by 48,600 jobs in 2023. In the first eleven months of 2024, the IT job market shrank by 17,900 jobs.
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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 twelve months, telecommunications lost 26,400 jobs, content providers lost 9,300 jobs, and other information services lost 10,300 jobs. Gainers in the same period were computer system designers gaining 32,300 jobs and hosting providers gaining 14,000. Currently, there are almost 100K unfilled jobs with over 101K unemployed IT Pros - a skills mismatch.”
The CEO added, “Experienced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning IT Professionals remain in high demand. Salaries for those professionals are well into the low six figures. Salaries for management positions with AI skills are in the $150K to $250K range. Experienced managers and developers are getting offers in the $125K to $165K range. “
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 IT Pros and technology-related expenditures. This has impacted the salaries of IT Pros ( Preliminary Data from 2024 Salary Survey) with a major impact on the compensation of IT Executives.” Also, "A number of CIOs are selectively pruning low skilled IT Pros and others are reducing staff in security and compliance as more AI tools are implemented in those areas.”
Updated with the latest data
Janulaitis said, “AI is slowing the growth of many entry level positions within IT, especially in customer service, telecommunications, and hosting automation. 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 AI, security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros. This in turn is reducing demand for many entry level positions in IT. “
Janulaitis expanded, “AI is displacing some IT Pros and eliminating some entry level positions as tools for AI are enhanced in ChatGPT, Natural language procession (NLP), TensorFlow (Google), Image Processing, PyTorch (Facebook), generative AI content creation, Midjourney, AI chatbot, Model tuning, and Sable Diffusion.” (see https://itmanager.substack.com/p/it-pros-with-ai-skills-in-high-demand)
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 continue to 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 December 2024 Forecast for the CY 2024
BLS makes major adjustments to the job market data showing an average decrease in the number of jobs for IT pros.
There has been a major shift in the creation of new IT Jobs - AI and economic slowing are the drivers.
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With this as a background, Janco revised its forecasts for a slight shrinking of the IT Job Market in 2023 by 25K to 30K. However, that number could exceed the losses of 2020 if there is more downward pressure on the US economy.
To assist in managing these troubled times, Janco has just released an update to its 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 AI, compliance mandates, and the current economic environment - including WFH and Cloud processing. It meets all the mandated security requirements and best practices.
Janco is an international consulting firm that follows issues that concern CIOs and CFOs. The firm publishes a series of IT and business Infrastructure HandiGuides® and Templates including IT Infrastructure Policies and Procedures, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Template, Security Template, IT Job Descriptions, and its semi-annual IT Salary Survey.
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