The tech unemployment rate dipped from 2.6 percent to 2.5 percent in November, even as the national unemployment rate climbed slightly from 4.1 percent to 4.2 percent, according to the latest CompTIA analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Meanwhile, employment within the tech industry declined by just 1,636 jobs last month, essentially flat. Throughout the broader economy, tech positions fell by 6,000 (keep in mind that the U.S. employs roughly 6.5 million tech professionals). That’s good news for tech professionals who are concerned that economic headwinds are damaging the demand for tech talent.
“While a flat month in the aggregate as some employers take a breather, the data continues to highlight the diversity of hiring activity across the tech workforce,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer for CompTIA, wrote in a statement accompanying the data. “Across industry sectors, metro areas and company sizes harnessing tech talent remains a top priority.”
However, there’s one tech segment where hiring definitely isn’t flat: artificial intelligence. Throughout the past 12 months, employers have posted some 331,000 active postings for AI jobs, representing a year-over-year increase of 71 percent. If you’re interested in breaking into AI as a profession, take the time to become familiar with the associated programming languages and concepts; while you won’t necessarily need to master them in order to land a great AI-centric job—for example, knowledge of prompt engineering is more than enough for many roles—it’s always helpful to know the fundamentals.
And despite fears that employers are driving tech professionals back into the office full-time, data from CompTIA also shows that Work From Home (WFH) positions are holding relatively steady at roughly 20 percent of total tech jobs. “On a hiring activity volume basis, the top WFH positions include software developers, IT project managers, data scientists and analysts, tech support specialists, and systems analysts,” CompTIA added.