IT Job Growth Continues to Decelerate; Engineering Employment Ticks Up
Tuesday, February 16th, 2016
The number of IT jobs grew 0.2 percent sequentially last month to 5,065,300, 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 4% since January 2015 adding 196,100 IT workers.
Engineering job growth improved modestly up 0.2 percent sequentially to 2,529,100. On a year-over-year basis, engineering employment grew by only 0.7% since January 2015 adding 17,500 engineering workers---continuing to underperform the overall workforce.
"As we begin 2016, the rate of IT job growth continued to decelerate with engineering employment showing modest improvement following an anemic 2015," stated Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. "Despite the deceleration in IT job growth, it continues to outperform the overall workforce," observed Roberts. "Rarely is economic data universally all positive or all negative. While apprehension over the deteriorating global macroeconomic picture is no doubt weighing on the entire labor market, we continue to see strong demand and a shortage of supply in many IT and engineering skill sets," commented Roberts.