Dive Brief:
- Despite setbacks throughout much of last year, 2024 ended on a high note as employers across the economy added 7,000 net new technology positions, according to a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published Friday by IT trade group CompTIA.
- IT unemployment dropped to 2% last month, an improvement from 2.5% the previous month, marking the lowest rate since November 2023. Average national unemployment also fell to 4.1% in December.
- Seeking to fill high-demand positions in tech, employers added more than 165,000 new job postings in December, for a total of 434,415 active job postings in tech. Software engineering, cybersecurity, and data science are among the key drivers of growth.
Dive Insight:
The final dispatch of employment data for 2024 caps a year of IT job market fluctuations. Despite the ups and downs in employment and job gains, CIOs continue to grapple with filling specialized tech positions.
The push toward AI implementation, and a lack of available talent, is fueling the demand for people with those skills, according to Art Zeile, CEO and president at DHI Group.
"The market for talent is like any other market: it's based on supply and demand, and there is a significant imbalance right now," said Zeile.
Large corporations, especially professional services firms and big technology companies, have moved to quickly scoop up available talent. Amazon, Accenture, Deloitte and PwC were among the companies with the largest numbers of December job postings, according to CompTIA's analysis.
"If you look at the careers sites for companies like McKinsey, IBM or Accenture, they are chock full of AI-related engineering positions," Zeile said. "They are hiring armies of AI engineers."
In response to the talent glut, analysts say CIOs will spend much of 2025 building internal literacy in priority areas. Two-thirds of organizations expect to train existing workers to fill cybersecurity, software, data, and other IT skill gaps, an increase from 59% in 2024, according to CompTIA.
