Tech Tanks in Latest Jobs Report As New States Try to Attract Them

Last week’s disappointing jobs report showed U.S. job growth stalled significantly in August, with just 22,000 new jobs added, and an unemployment rate that has risen to 4.3%. It was the worst August report since the pandemic and the market treated it accordingly, welcoming it for the potential rate cuts it may herald but wary of the slower growth it may portend. “The labor market is showing signs of cracking,” Heather Long, Navy Federal Credit Union senior economist, wrote in a note to investors on Thursday. “It’s not a red siren alarm yet, but the signs keep growing that businesses are starting to cut workers.” Tech was not spared Recent employment data confirms an increasingly uneven landscape within the technology sector, reflecting a shift away from the rapid job growth that characterized the early post-pandemic years. According to a recent analysis by research think tank CompTIA, the sector has experienced a net decline of approximately 2,700 jobs over the past year, a 0.1% decrease. This contrasts sharply with the period from late 2020 through 2022, when tech companies collectively added over 628,400 jobs across 29 months. However, the last two years have seen almost 100,000 of those positions cut, indicating a recalibration amid the broader economic and geopolitical shifts. “Unevenness in the data means acknowledging the employers and job seekers struggling with a multitude of challenges but also recognizing it is not all doom and gloom,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA, said. “Hiring intent data continues to show employers pursuing tech talent across a range of disciplines, from AI and data science to tech support and cloud engineering.” The hottest spot for hiring was unsurprisingly in the AI skills job listings, which leapt 94% year-over-year according to CompTIA’s AI Hiring Intent Index. For job postings themselves, 16% were for workers with eight or more years of experience; 21% for workers in the zero to three year range; and almost a third were for workers with four to seven years of experience.