Dive Brief:
- One-third of technology positions posted by employers in October were for emerging tech related roles, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published Friday.
- Employers posted 360,065 tech role openings during October, the highest monthly total since September 2019. It's an increase of almost 76,000 roles from September numbers.
- The 2.1% October unemployment rate in tech is less than half the national unemployment rate which fell to 4.6%.
Dive Insight:
After a pause last year, companies are back on track to advance on digital transformation. Modernizing will require skills, especially in fields where talent has traditionally been scarce, such as automation or AI.
Emerging technologies are seeping into different types of roles, driving the demand for these skills.
"It's more common to have a software development job or a data scientist job that requires some level of competency with machine learning," said Tim Herbert, EVP for research and market intelligence at CompTIA, in an email.
The rise in emerging tech hiring indicates companies are aiming to expand or resume their activities in areas such as AI, automation, robotics and the internet of things, Herbert said.
Talent scarcity is the top factor limiting the deployment of emerging technology solutions, according to Gartner. Just one in five IT automation technologies advanced in the adoption cycle since last year, the firm found.
Democratizing AI use in the enterprise can help improve retention, research published by MIT Sloan Management Review shows. Over half of executives say teams relying on AI implementation improved their efficiency, as well as the quality of their decisions.