The latest employment data confirms a continuation of caution in tech hiring among employers, according to analysis by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the tech industry and workforce.

Overall tech industry employment was essentially flat month-over-month, as indicated by a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) #JobsReport data. Companies in the tech services and custom software development sector continue to be a pocket of growth adding 3,400 new workers for the month. This was offset by the tech manufacturing sector shedding 2,500 workers.¹ 

Across the entire economy, tech occupation employment declined by 28,000 positions in August.²The unemployment rate for tech occupations inched up to 3.4%, compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. About 6.3 million people are employed in core tech occupations by companies of all types across the economy.

Active employer job postings for tech positions increased modestly to just over 500,000 last month.³ That includes nearly 211,000 new job postings added in August. Positions for software developers and engineers and data scientists saw the largest month over month increase. Demand also remains solid for tech support specialists, data analysts, IT project managers and network analysts.

"The bumpy stretch of tech labor market data requires the usual balancing of shorter-term and longer-term perspectives," said Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA.

Job posting data suggests that many employers remain focused on skills-based hiring and considering candidates who traveled alternate pathways to the workforce. In August, 45% of active tech job postings did not specify a four-year degree requirement among candidates. Several key occupations recorded even higher percentages, including network support specialists (86%), IT support specialists (72%), network and systems administrators (51%), web and UI/EX designers (48%) and database administrators (47%).

Among metropolitan areas, the largest numbers of tech job postings were in the Washington, D.C., New York and Dallas markets. California, Texas, Virginia, New York and Florida topped the list of states.

The "CompTIA Tech Jobs Report" is available at https://www.comptia.org/content/tech-jobs-report.