Hiring for IT Pros Slows
IT Pro unemployment rate higher than the US National Unemployment rate
Unemployment Rate for IT Professions is 5.4% in February
Park City - UT - e-janco.com - IT Pro unemployment rate is 5.4% - the second month in a row it is higher than the US National Unemployment rate.
National Unemployment Rate versus IT Pros Unemployment Rate
In January the BLS reported the National Unemployment Rate was 4.1% and 5.4% for IT Professionals.
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IT Job Market Size Trend
The IT job Market continues to shrink
Source BLS analysis by Janco Associates, Inc.
The CEO of Janco said, “There continues to be uncertainty in the outlook for IT initiatives. A preliminary impact of DOGE is being felt as many contracts for IT Professionals have been put on hold and government IT pros do not have a clear picture of what the future holds for them. The number of unemployed IT professionals dropped slightly in February to 148K from 152K in January.”
He added, “The latest data from the BLS shows the job market for IT professionals shrank by 9,100 positions in the first two months of 2025. The fluctuations in the US stock markets and the feeling by some economic forecasters that we are in a recession or soon to be in one is slowing down hiring efforts in many enterprises. Questions like - What will the impact of tariffs be? How long will it take for inflation to be brought under control? Will the Congress pass the Trump tax cuts? Will the Ukraine and Middle East wars be stopped? All of these are issues that enterprises are facing, is impacting the pace of hiring of IT Pros.”
IT Job Market Change - February 2024
IT Job Market shrank by 10,100 jobs last month
Updated with the data from the BLS and Janco Associates Inc as of March 2025. Analysis shows that IT Job Market has shrunk by 120,500 jobs in 2024
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The CEO stated “From our interviews with over 100 CFOs and CIOs, we found that the start of the new administration continues to be viewed as positive. They do feel there is a good chance there will be an economic turndown in the second or third quarter of 2025. However, it will be not deep or long in duration.” He added, “IT Pros who were unemployed last month found jobs more quickly than was anticipated as CIOs rushed to fill open positions.”
Also, he said, “The unemployment rate for IT Professionals is 5.4% which is higher than the overall national unemployment rate of 4.1%. The full impact of the DOGE initiatives has not been felt as of yet. However, over the past several quarters much of the overall job growth was in the government sectors of the economy. With the new administration that will not be the case in the future.”
Janco said, “From our interviews, we have found hiring and job growth continues to be in small to mid-sized enterprises. Many of the larger firms continue to be focused on improvements in productivity and replacing lower-level skills with AI applications. AI continues to halt the growth of entry-level positions within IT, especially in customer service, internal reporting, telecommunications, and hosting automation. C-level executives continue to be focused on eliminating “non-essential” managers, staff, and services. Experienced coders and developers have limited opportunities with legacy applications. The highest demand continues to be for AI, security professionals, new technology programmers, and Internet processing IT Pros.“
Janco added, “According to the latest BLS data analyzed, there are now approximately 4.1 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US. Economic uncertainty continues to hurt overall IT hiring. Large high-tech firms continue to focus on improving bottom lines and justify investments in AI and LLM solutions.”
IT Job Market shrank for the second year in a row - Over 121K jobs lost
There are approximately 148K unemployed IT Professionals. The IT job market shrank by over 148K jobs in the prior 24 months. 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 limited growth in the IT Job Market in the calendar year 2025.
Data complied and forecast updated by Janco Associates with data as of February 2025
The IT Unemployment rate in the past several months has exceeded the US national unemployment rate - That is a bad omen for the IT Job Market in general. This impact can be seen in both the computer hardware and software markets in falling sales. There currently are over 148,000 unemployed IT Professionals. Read on...
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The CEO of Janco, M. Victor Janulaitis said, “Many CEOs have given CFOs and CIOs the green light to hire IT Pros. For the most part, most of those positions were to assist in developing and deploying of AI initiatives. The BLS reclassified several job titles and adjusted the November and December number of jobs reported down by over 111K. The revised data impacted the total IT job market size and showed a resultant decline in the IT Job market for 2024 of 123,200.”
IT Job Market Growth
Janulatis added, ”Despite the 5.7% IT unemployment rate, the IT job market grew by 11,100 jobs in January. The number of unemployed IT Professionals was 152k in January, an increase of 54k from December which had 98k unemployed IT Pros. ”
IT Job Market shrank for the second year in a row - Over 121K jobs lost
There are approximately 148K unemployed IT Professionals. The IT job market shrank by over 148K jobs in the prior 24 months. 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 limited growth in the IT Job Market in the calendar year 2025.
Data complied and forecast updated by Janco Associates with data as of February 2025
Janco’s current forecast is that the IT job market will grow slightly in FY 2025 – between 20k to 40k.
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