Last month, U.S. employers cut 128,000 key IT jobs, largely reversing employment growth in October as companies prepare for a second wave of Covid-19, closures and closures, computer commerce group CompTIA reports.
Companies in the technology sector have also cut wages, with the loss of about 8,600 jobs, particularly in information technology, sales and marketing, the group said.
The results are based on the analysis of the data released on Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency said that businesses in all sectors created 245,000 jobs in November, up from 610,000 the previous month.
The decrease in the number of IT jobs followed the growth in October, when employers hired 142,000 new employees, CompTIA reports.
In November, jobs in IT services and customer-specific software development were hit hardest, with an estimated loss of 7,600 jobs. The only growth was in data processing, hosting and related services, which rose by 1,200.
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The unemployment rate for high-tech jobs remained roughly stable at 2.4%, compared to an overall rate of 6.7%. According to the group, the number of vacancies in information technology has also fallen in the past month, with an estimated 42,000 posts under 200,000.
The largest demand was for software and application developers, followed by IT support specialists, system engineers and architects, IT project managers and system analysts. Among the top employers last month were professional, scientific and technical service providers, finance and insurance companies and manufacturers.
Tim Herbert,
CompTIA’s executive vice president of research and marketing information said the decline reflected the growing economic uncertainty caused by a sharp increase in reported coronavirus cases across the country.
On Monday, after a short dip after Thanksgiving, the seven-day average number of new cases in the United States rose to 196,233, with the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care for the first time exceeding 20,000.
The health authorities say that the number of holiday trips and meetings is expected to increase in the coming weeks.
Tom Gimbel,
The founder and CEO of LaSalle Network, a recruitment company, said the prolonged crisis is likely to increase demand for IT personnel to support remote systems.
With a second wave coming in the coming months, teleworking will last at least until the second quarter of 2021, according to Gimbel. This results in less personal work and skills are crucial in areas such as security, cloud computing and software development.
We still see that there is a great demand for some in-house and contract technology consultants.
Jeffrey Weber,
CEO of Robert Half Technology.
Weber explained that unemployment rates for some jobs in the technology sector remain low, adding that the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic could affect recruitment activities in some companies.
Adriana Bokel Gerd,
CEO and Vice President of a software company
Pegasystems Inc,
The Cambridge-based company, Massachusetts, announced that it has hired 70 new IT staff this year to meet companies’ demand for technical support to help them manage the pandemic.
Many of these new entrants into the IT market are in existing positions and some are purely new to give us new resources and expertise in certain areas of strategic importance, she said.
Write to Angus Loten at [email protected].
Pegasystems Inc. is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An earlier version of this article wrongly states that it is in New York City. (Correction of 7 December)
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