Dive Brief:
- Active job postings for IT roles jumped to a three-year high as employers across the economy added more than 272,000 open roles in September, according to a CompTIA analysis published Friday.
- IT roles in the technology sector, however, slid slightly in September, down more than 10,000 positions from last month. Hiring for tech roles across all sectors also contracted by around 6,000 roles, according to CompTIA's analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The dip in hiring resulted in another uptick in IT unemployment, which rose to 3.3% from 3.1% in August, and is below the national average of 4.2%.
Dive Insight:
Alongside tightening budgets and legacy tech, CIOs often point to skills gaps when asked to identify the barriers to smooth enterprise technology deployments.
A dearth of technology skills is costing businesses hundreds of thousands in outside consulting fees and unused tools. The safe use of AI capabilities is also deterred by lagging skills, even as companies work to increase adoption levels.
The jump in growth for job listings in tech shows companies are investing in technology and see it as a differentiator, although they continue to move cautiously, according to Seth Robinson, VP of research at CompTIA.
Robinson said demand is ongoing for traditional job roles including software development, systems administration and tech support, which have maintained similar responsibilities despite the influence of AI skills.
“The number of active job postings jumping to the level that it did is a signal that the gap between demand and supply is not only still there, but it's maybe growing a little bit," Robinson told CIO Dive.
In the current hiring environment, CIOs can look for opportunities to draw in the necessary tech talent, said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor.
“This can be an environment where it’s beneficial to try to find talent that would be too hard to compete for in a hotter job market," Zhao told CIO Dive. “That might mean looking at other industries or employers that aren’t doing as well to see if there’s talent you can poach there, or if there have been layoffs in other industries that can be a place where you can look for talent.”
