U.S. Tech Firms Add Jobs Despite Automation

Computerworld: Two new research reports have shed light on the trends impacting IT hiring. The first report from the National Science Foundation finds that high-tech manufacturing employment in the U.S. has declined 28 percent since 2000, costing the country 687,000 jobs.

However, a separate report from Forrester Research found that the U.S. tech sector employed 3.2 million people at the end of 2011. That’s a net increase of 42,000 jobs from the previous year. Much of that increase came from the 131,000 new jobs in the IT services and software development fields. The report said those job increases could have been event higher, but companies are choosing to spend money on automation to improve productivity rather than increasing head counts. “Rather than add capacity, in the form of more workers, they are choosing to put their cash flow into technology to reduce cost,” said Forrester’s Andrew Bartels.