Dive Brief:
- Tech talent demand ticked back up in October, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Employers across the economy added more than 26,000 IT jobs to their ranks during the month according to the Friday report.
- Unemployment among tech professionals also lowered to 2.8%, down half a percentage point from last month, according to the report. Active tech job postings, a key indicator of future talent demand, jumped 18.5% year over year, reaching 629,876 across economy sectors.
- “Employers across industries are looking for people with software, AI, cybersecurity, data, systems and networking capabilities, reinforcing the value of building adaptable technology skills,” said Seth Robinson, VP of research at CompTIA, in a release.
Dive Insight:
Signs of more tech talent demand are indicative of ongoing enterprise modernization — businesses are looking to bring on and retain the workers that can bring their IT plans to fruition.
But as companies adapt to new ways of doing business, the profile of technologists they pursue has shifted, according to Julie Loucks, head of North America vertical strategy at Experis, a ManpowerGroup company.
“Instead of a generalist hire that can do a little bit of everything … now companies are really seeking a specialist that can help them with their outcomes,” Loucks said. “They’re concentrating spend on roles that help them implement, govern, secure and scale those AI capabilities.”
Official data aligns with those priorities, CompTIA’s report found. Categories like DevOps engineers, infrastructure architects, cybersecurity engineers and data scientists logged double-digit growth last month, according to the analysis, signaling ongoing demand for the types of workers that can support AI deployment.
AI engineers, cloud architects, and cybersecurity professionals are raking in most of enterprise talent demand, according to Loucks.
“As companies deploy AI, they’re hiring these people who can secure their models, govern their use cases, and then manage their risks,” Loucks said.
However, the gap looms large between talent demand and available workers. More than 73% of tech roles include some tie to AI skills, according to Robert Half data, a trend accelerated by enterprise modernization efforts.
“The challenge is that these skills are still scarce and come with a cost premium,” Richard Matthews, senior solution consulting director at Nexthink, told CIO Dive in an email. “Demand is outstripping supply, therefore, firms will need to build these skills from within, through the people they already employ.”
