The size of the IT workforce in the United States has topped 4 million workers for the first time last quarter, according to CIO Insight’s
analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And the number of
employed IT pros reached 3,956,000 in the second quarter of 2008, also
a record high.
The IT unemployment rate inched up one-tenth of a percentage point
last quarter to 2.3 percent, but still hovers near historic lows.
That’s in contrast to overall unemployment, which last quarter stood at
4.7 percent, more than double the IT jobless rate. (In June, overall
unemployment stood at 5.5 percent for the second consecutive month,
after shedding 62,000 jobs that month. Comparable numbers aren’t
available for computer-related occupations.)
Why would IT employment remain robust as unemployment rises in most
other job categories? IT performs a critical role in business
productivity, and the efficiencies it brings are crucial for employers
looking to trim costs—including payrolls—as fuel and related
expenditures soar and the economy and dollar weakens. In addition,
companies today cannot operate without functioning IT systems, so
certain business technology skills cannot be eliminated if a company
wants to remain competitive.
A year earlier, the IT unemployment rate stood at 2.1 percent, with
3,599,000 workers employed in IT and 77,000 jobless and looking for
positions in the field, for an IT workforce size of 3,675,000.
With 4,050,000 managers, professionals and other staffers holding or
seeking computer-related positions last quarter, the IT workforce has
grown by 10.2 percent over the past four quarters.
Another sign of a strong IT economy: the number of workers employed
by IT services firms rose by 56,100 this past year to 1,414,400, a 4.1
percent increase, according to last month’s BLS establishment survey of
some 160,000 businesses and government agencies covering about 400,000
worksites. The active sample includes about one-third of all nonfarm
payroll workers.
The increase in IT services employment reflects the continuing need
by companies for outsourcers to manage corporate IT infrastructures as
well as provide hard-to-find but needed skills to develop and support
new applications and systems.
Not every person employed by IT services firms—officially labeled by
the government as computer systems design and related services—is an IT
pro, but a majority are. A 2006 government report estimates that 53
percent of IT services firms' workers hold IT jobs such as programmers;
software engineers; computer, network systems and data communications
analysts; or database, network and systems administrators. Another 3
percent are computer and IS managers. The remaining employees—44
percent of payrolls—encompass non-IT managers and administrative and
operational support personnel, including those in finance, human
resources and sales.
Besides the establishment survey, the government also queries 60,000
households to determine employment and unemployment in the U.S. For our
analysis, we use a BLS quarterly report that aggregates the monthly
reports and details employment in hundreds of occupation categories.
The government tracks seven major computer-related job categories:
computer scientists and systems analysts, computer programmers,
computer software engineers, computer support specialists, database
administrators, network and computer systems administrators and network
systems and data communications specialists plus computer and
information systems managers.
CIO Insight analyzes these eight occupation categories to
determine current IT employment conditions. Because these IT
professions comprises less than 3 percent of the overall workforce, and
each occupation category’s size on its own would be statistically
unreliable, CIO Insight aggregates the last four quarters to
determine each quarter’s workforce, employment and unemployment levels.
For example, we added BLS data from the last two quarters of 2007 and
the first two quarters of 2008 then divided by four to determine
second-quarter 2008 data. Statisticians and economists say aggregating
four quarters worth of data makes them more statically reliable than
just using one quarter’s worth of data.
