U.S. IT Market Continues to Create Jobs but Pace of Growth Slows

Employment in the U.S. information technology (IT) sector increased by 3,600 jobs in April, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by CompTIA. But the pace of growth is decreasing.
Through the first four months of 2016, the IT sector added 24,400 jobs. Despite the uptick in hiring among tech firms, employment across the sector is growing at a slower pace, compared to the past five years.
Analyzing the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Janco Associates stated that, at the current pace, U.S. firms will create 87,700 IT jobs by the end of the year, compared to 112,500 in 2015.
The IT workforce includes two components: employment within the IT sector and IT occupations across all other industries. The IT sector is the largest employer of IT occupation workers. IT occupation employment stood at an estimated 4.5 million in April, down 2.9% from the previous month. For the year to date, IT occupations have added a net 64,000 new jobs.
Data processing, hosting and related services (down 600 jobs) and other info services, including search portals (down 400 jobs) recorded employment declines, according to CompTIA.
Analysts say economic uncertainties were forcing companies to cut costs, and the trends make it clear that businesses are focusing IT spending on training, software, and hardware upgrades rather than personnel.
The biggest category for job postings last month was software and application developers, at 69,000 postings, signaling robust demand for software talent. Other categories of note included computer systems engineers and developers (18,600), web developers (18,200), computer systems analysts (16,600), and IT project managers (16,300).