U.S. IT jobs inch up, ending 23-month fall: TechServe Alliance
VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES — Employment in the United States information technology (IT) sector saw a slight 0.08% uptick in January 2024, adding 4,400 jobs, after nearly two years of declines, according to TechServe Alliance.
This marks the first increase since March 2022 for the industry, a “cause for cautious optimism for 2024,” according to TechServe Alliance CEO Mark Roberts.
“While we saw significant month-over-month contraction beginning in the second half of 2022 and continuing through the Spring of 2023, the declines began to moderate during the second half of the year. Over the last few months, we have seen IT employment numbers come in effectively flat.”
Roberts also warned that the road to full recovery might be uneven, with some tech companies still adjusting their workforce size following the pandemic-induced overhiring.
TechServe Alliance’s IT Employment Index is a unique measurement of ongoing staffing patterns of a dozen IT and computer related occupations in 22 industries and industry sectors. The index is based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.
According to data aggregation website Layoffs.fyi, over 240,000 employees from the tech segment were laid off globally in 2023, and over 34,000 from 141 tech companies so far this year.
Amazon Health Services announced significant job cuts across its One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy divisions, continuing the wave of layoffs enacted by the tech giant over the past year.
The move adds to over 27,000 job cuts made by Amazon since early 2023. It occurs alongside similar workforce reductions recently announced by DocuSign, affecting 6% or around 440 employees.
Social media company Snap Inc. (Snap), the parent company of popular messaging app Snapchat, also announced plans to lay off approximately 10% or over 500 workers to “reduce hierarchy and promote in-person collaboration.”
The layoffs at Snap come amid a broader trend in the tech industry, with major players like Alphabet, Paypal, and Salesforce also announcing layoffs in January.
“While challenges persist, this month’s data echoes a narrative of resilience and gradual progress within IT employment,” Roberts added.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, job recruitment in the technology sector has declined over the past year, according to a report from CareerJunction.
It found a 6% total decrease in recruitment activity in South Africa from November to December 2023. Sectors hit hardest include legal (-25%), sales (-8%), marketing (-4%), building & construction (-3%), and IT (-3%).
