IT Job Growth Decelerates; Engineering Employment Anemic

Staff Report From Georgia CEO

Thursday, January 14th, 2016

The number of IT jobs grew 0.2 percent sequentially last month to 5,021,900, according to TechServe Alliance, the national trade association of the IT & Engineering Staffing and Solutions industry. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment grew by 3.7% since December 2014 adding 178,300 IT workers.

Engineering job growth continues to be anemic, up only 0.1 percent sequentially to 2,532,600. On a year-over-year basis, engineering employment grew by only 0.6% since December 2014 adding 16,200 engineering workers---underperforming the overall workforce.

"As we closed out 2015, the rate of IT job growth slowed with engineering employment barely making it into positive territory," observed Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. "While the US economy is on a reasonably solid footing, there is increasing uncertainty associated with the macroeconomic and geopolitical picture," stated Roberts. "Although we expect IT job growth to continue to outperform the overall job market with an ongoing shortage of talent in high-demand skill sets, growth will likely not be as robust as we experienced earlier in the economic recovery.  Engineering employment has been particularly vulnerable to a number of industry sectors such as oil and gas that are experiencing significant headwinds. We anticipate these pressures will continue throughout 2016 inhibiting engineering job growth," commented Roberts.