The U.S. technology sector added a modest 3,500 new jobs in December, the second lowest total for the calendar year, according to analysis by CompTIA, the leading technology industry association.

Across the entire U.S. economy information technology (IT) occupations grew by an estimated 3,000 jobs in December, CompTIA's examination of today's U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics #JobsReport reveals.

In December, data processing, hosting and related services added an estimated 2,100 jobs, followed by computer and electronics product manufacturing, with some 1,500 new hires.

"Even this relatively small gain in technology manufacturing employment is notable, given that the overall U.S. manufacturing category shed some 12,000 jobs last month," said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA.

Hiring in IT services, custom software development and computer systems design occupations recorded just 700 new jobs last month. The category of other information services, which includes search engines and portals and other businesses that supply, store and provide information, added 400 new positions.

The modest gains in these four categories were countered by the loss of an estimated 1,200 jobs in telecommunications. For the full year telecom employment declined by more than 28,000 workers.

The IT unemployment rate for December was 2.3%, slightly higher than the December 2018 rate of 2.1%.

Employers Searching for Software and App Developers, Core IT Pros

December job postings for IT occupations declined by about 7,200 from November, but employers across the country still posted openings for more than 313,000 positions.

Software and application developers were in highest demand, with 98,700 job openings advertised. Other in-demand occupations included IT user support specialists (24,300), systems engineers and architects (24,000), systems analysts (20,500) and IT project managers (18,600).

On a geographic basis, California (54,596), Texas (27,947) and New York (18,899) were the top three states for core IT job postings last month. Florida, at 17%, and New York (15%) recorded double-digit percentage growth in the number of IT job postings from November to December.

The top five companies nationwide for the number of IT job postings in December were Deloitte, Anthem Blue Cross, Wells Fargo, PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM.