IT Unemployment Only 3.3%

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Researchers say the IT job market continues to look good for IT professionals. Tech unemployment in the fourth quarter was just 3.3 percent, much lower than the overall unemployment rate.

Nathan Eddy from eWeek reported, “The unemployment rate for technology professionals steadied in the fourth quarter at 3.3 percent, less than half the national average. Although much of the rest of the American (and world) job market seems stuck in second gear, the opportunities in the information technology (IT) sector are rapidly expanding, as more tech jobs have been created in the three and a half years since the end of the Great Recession than under the same recovery timelines in either 1991 or 2001, according to the latest report from Web-based IT jobs specialist Dice.”

In its Tech Employment Snapshot (PDF), Dice noted, “The largest component of those job gains is technology consulting which added another 21,100 positions in Q4 2012 for a total of 80,500 positions in 2012. This past year marks the best year for this category since 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Partially offsetting those gains were job losses for the year in manufacturing of computer and electronic products (10,100) and data processing and hosting (1,600), despite gains in the latter category during the fourth quarter.”

NextGov’s Brittany Ballenstedt observed, “Some IT positions saw unemployment numbers well below the overall 3.3 percent average for IT pros. Those fields include database administrators (1.5 percent), network architects (1.9 percent) and software developers (2.9 percent). Other IT fields also saw unemployment rates below the national average, such as computer systems analysts (3.3 percent), Web developers (3.5 percent), network and system administrators (4.3 percent), computer and information systems managers (4.3 percent), programmers (4.6 percent) and computer support specialists (4.9 percent), according to the report.”

According to NetworkWorld’s Fred O’Connor, “IT hiring in 2013 will focus on jobs involving cloud computing, mobile technology and business intelligence, said staffing professionals. But cloud computing jobs for on-site infrastructure support and software management are likely to be increasingly handled by service providers. And software developers should take note that while there will be ample programming positions open this year, companies increasingly want business-savvy developers.”