What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are four known issues in this build, including one which affects ID admins, in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management (MDM) apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment. To mitigate the issue in Microsoft Intune, you can set the “Enforce drive encryption type on operating system drives” or “Enforce drive encryption on fixed drives” policies to not configured.
KB5032288 (OS Builds 22621.2792 and 22631.2792) Preview
Release date: December 4, 2023
In this update, Copilot in Windows (in preview) can be used across multiple displays, and it can be used with Alt+Tab. When you press Alt+Tab, the thumbnail preview for Copilot in Windows appears among other thumbnail previews of open windows. You can switch between them using the Tab keystroke. This is available to a small audience initially and will deploy more broadly in the months that follow.
The update also fixes a wide range of bugs, including one in which the Copilot icon did not show as being as active when it’s open on the taskbar.
This build introduces a preview of the Copilot for Windows AI assistant and a File Explorer with a new interface that includes new files displayed as a carousel, and that recognizes local and cloud folders. It also introduces the Windows Backup app that can be used to quickly get your current PC backed up and ready to move to a new PC. In addition, there are many other new features and interface changes throughout Windows, including for Settings, Windows Spotlight, security graphics, voice access, Narrator, and others.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are three known issues in this build, including one that affects ID admins in which using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in MDM apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment. To mitigate the issue in Microsoft Intune, you can set the “Enforce drive encryption type on operating system drives” or “Enforce drive encryption on fixed drives” policies to not configured.
KB5031455 (OS Builds 22621.2506 and 22631.2506) Preview
Release date: Oct. 31, 2023
This update introduces a preview of the Copilot for Windows AI assistant and File Explorer with a new interface that includes new files displayed as a carousel, and that recognizes local and cloud folders. It also includes minor interface changes to many parts of the operating system, including taskbar, system tray, security notifications, and more.
There is one known issue, which applies to IT admins: using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management (MDM) apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment.
This build introduces a preview of the Copilot for Windows AI assistant and a File Explorer with a new interface that includes new files displayed as a carousel, and that recognizes local and cloud folders. It also introduces the Windows Backup app that can be used to quickly get your current PC backed up and ready to move to a new PC.
There is one known issue in this build that applies to IT admins: using the FixedDrivesEncryptionType or SystemDrivesEncryptionType policy settings in the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) node in mobile device management (MDM) apps might incorrectly show a 65000 error in the “Require Device Encryption” setting for some devices in your environment.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
This update adds websites to the Recommended section of the Start menu. These websites come from your browsing history. You can remove any website URL from the Recommended section using the shortcut menu. To turn off the feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Start.
It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the search box tooltip did not appear in the correct position, and another in which the search button disappeared when you interacted with the search flyout box.
In addition, if you want to use a variety of new features, such as the AI-driven Copilot for Windows and improvements to File Manager, Paint, and other apps, go to Settings > Windows Update, toggle on “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available,” and then restart your PC. For more details, see Microsoft’s blog post.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Start menu icons were missing after you signed in for the first time, and another in which settings did not sync even if you turned on the toggle on the Windows Backup page in the Settings app.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This update makes brightness settings more accurate and fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which the Defender Firewall Profile failed to automatically switch from a trusted LAN to a public network. Another fix makes the connection between the client and the Windows Push Notification Services (WNS) server more reliable.
There is one known issue in this update, applicable to IT admins, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build introduces a wide variety of new features, including improved sharing of a local file in File Explorer with Microsoft Outlook contacts, the rollout of notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu, and new text selection and editing voice access commands, such as for selecting a range of text in a text box and deleting all text in a text box. It also adds a “USB4 hubs and devices” Settings page at Settings > Bluetooth & devices > USB > USB4 Hubs and Devices.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This update improves the sharing of a local file in File Explorer with Microsoft Outlook contacts. You now have the option to quickly email the file to yourself. In addition, loading your contacts from Outlook has been made simpler. This feature is not available for files stored in Microsoft OneDrive folders; OneDrive has its own sharing functionality.
The build also adds a VPN status icon, a small shield, to the system tray. It displays when you are connected to a recognized VPN profile. The VPN icon will be overlayed in your system’s accent color over the active network connection.
It also adds new features and improvements to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. For more information, see Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. It also lets you authenticate across Microsoft clouds. This feature also satisfies Conditional Access checks if they are needed.
A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which Narrator read the wrong state when you canceled the selection of an option button, and another that stopped Teams from alerting you about missed calls or messages.
There is one known issue in this update, applicable to IT admins, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
The update fixes several bugs, including one that affects 32-bit apps that are large address aware and use the CopyFile API. You might have issues when you save, copy, or attach files. If you use some commercial or enterprise security software that uses extended file attributes, this issue will likely affect you. For Microsoft Office apps, this issue only affects the 32-bit versions. You might receive the error, “Document not saved.”
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This update shows the full amount of storage capacity of all your Microsoft OneDrive subscriptions on the Accounts page in the Settings app. It also adds Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, which improves audio fidelity and battery life when you pair your device with Bluetooth LE Audio earbuds and headphones. To use the feature, your device needs to support Bluetooth LE Audio.
A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one that did not let you access the Server Message Block (SMB) shared folder and another in which the Windows Firewall dropped all connections to the IP address of a captive portal when you chose the Captive Portal Addresses option.
There is one known issue in this update, applicable to IT admins, in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This update adds a new toggle control on the Settings > Windows Update page. When you turn it on, your device will be prioritized to get the latest non-security updates and enhancements when they are available for your device. For managed devices, the toggle is disabled by default.
The update also fixes several bugs, including a race condition in the Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) in which the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) stopped responding when the system processed multiple local account operations at the same time.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are two known issues in this update, one in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected, and another in which some apps might have intermittent issues with speech recognition, expressive input, and handwriting when using Chinese or Japanese languages.
This update lets you configure application group rules for firewall settings. It also adds a new toggle control on the Settings > Windows Update page. When you turn it on, your device will be prioritized to get the latest non-security updates and enhancements when they are available. For managed devices, the toggle is disabled by default.
A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one that stopped mobile device management customers from printing, and another in which the Tab Window Manager stopped responding in IE mode.
There are two known issues in this update, both of which are applicable to IT admins: one in which copying large multiple gigabyte files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are three known issues in this update, two of which are applicable to IT admins: one in which copying large multiple gigabyte files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build includes several new features, including one in which notifications for Microsoft accounts are now on the Start menu. (Note that this feature is available to only a small number of people and will roll out to more in the next several months.) The build also offers a variety of new features and improvements in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — go here for details.
A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which USB printers were classified as multimedia devices even though they are not, and another in which Microsoft PowerPoint stopped responding when you used accessibility tools.
There are four known issues in this update, three of which are applicable to IT admins, including one in which copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build implements phase three of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) hardening. After you install this update, you cannot turn off the changes using the registry key. See KB5004442 for details. It also fixes a bug in which trying to join an Active Directory domain when reusing an existing computer account failed. See KB5020276 for details.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are four known issues in this update, three of which are applicable to IT admins, including one in which copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build, Micorosoft’s second “moments” build, introduces a wide variety of new features, including an improved search box. As you type in the search box, search results now appear in a search flyout pane. And those who have preview access to Bing’s AI-powered search can now perform searches directly from the search box. (You can sign up get access to Bing’s AI-powered search.)
There are a variety of other new features as well, including the ability to link iPhone devices to Windows 11 PCs using a new preview of Phone Link for iOS. The update also lets you adjust Windows Studio Effects settings directly from quick settings in the taskbar. You can adjust background blur, eye contact, and automatic framing and apply them to your communications applications, with integration into Microsoft Teams.
You can also open Quick Assist directly from the Start menu. The update also includes new widgets for Phone Link, Xbox Game Pass, and Spotify. In addition, the Snipping Tool has been given the ability to capture video, and Notepad gets tabs.
Windows 11 Pro devices and higher that are Azure Active Directory (AAD) joined can now get AI-powered recommended content on the Start menu, and touch devices get a variety of new ways to interact via touch. The Quick Assist app has been redesigned and can be opened directly from the Start menu. Windows will now offer energy recommendations to improve the energy efficiency of your PC and reduce your carbon footprint. Task Manager gets a variety of enhancements, including being able to filter processes using the binary name, PID, or publisher name.
A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which provisioning packages on Windows 11 failed to apply in certain circumstances when elevation was required, and another that caused reliability issues in Task View.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are three known issues in this update, each applicable to IT admins, including one in which copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build changes the way you view and control preview (optional) .NET Framework updates. All preview.NET Framework updates will now display on the Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates page. On that page, you can control which optional updates you want to install.
The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in searchindexer.exe that randomly stopped you from signing in or signing out, and another in which you would not be able to use AutoPilot to set up some systems with Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) firmware.
There are two known issues in this update, both of which affect IT admins. In one, using provisioning packages on Windows 11, version 22H2 might not work as expected. In the other, copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are two known issues in this update, each applicable to IT admins, one in which copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish, and another in which using provisioning packages might not work as expected.
This build includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and the December 2022 Security Updates. It also fixes a bug in which Task Manager sometimes displayed certain elements in the user interface in unexpected colors, making some parts of the UI unreadable.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are four known issue in this update, each applicable to IT admins, including one in which After you install this update, you might be unable to reconnect to Direct Access after temporarily losing network connectivity or transitioning between Wi-Fi networks or access points.
In this build, Microsoft OneDrive subscribers get storage alerts on the Systems page in the Settings app. The alert appears when someone is close to their storage limit. You can also manage your storage and purchase additional storage in Settings. The build also combines Windows Spotlight with Themes on the Personalization page. This makes it easier to discover and turn on the Windows Spotlight feature.
Several bugs have been fixed, including one that stopped some modern applications from opening, and another that caused File Explorer to stop working when you close context menus and menu items.
There are two known issues in this update, both of which affect IT admins. In one, using provisioning packages on Windows 11, version 22H2 might not work as expected. In the other, copying large multiple gigabyte (GB) files might take longer than expected to finish.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are two known issues in this update, applicable to IT admins, including one in which file copies using Group Policy Preferences might fail or might create empty shortcuts or files using 0 (zero) bytes. Known affected Group Policy Objects are related to files and shortcuts in User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings in Group Policy Editor.
This build adds Task Manager to the context menu when you right-click the taskbar. It is not yet enabled on all PCs, and will roll out in the coming weeks. Microsoft says the build also “enhances search visual treatments on the taskbar to improve discoverability.” Only a small group of people will get this feature right away. It will be deployed more broadly over the next few months.
The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused vertical and horizontal line artifacts to appear on the screen, and another that stopped the credential UI from displaying in IE mode when you use Microsoft Edge.
There are two known issues in this build that affect IT admins, including one in which copying large multiple-gigabyte files might take longer than expected to finish.
This build, Microsoft’s first “moment” update for Windows 11, introduces several new features, the most significant of which is the addition of tabs in File Explorer like those in browsers. Among other File Explorer improvements are the ability to pin important files on its home page for easy access to them. You’ll also be able to see actions that colleagues take on your shared files.
In addition, with a new feature called Suggested Actions, when you copy phone numbers or future dates, Windows provides suggestions for what you might want to do with them, such as making a call with Teams or Skype or adding an event in the Calendar app.
The new taskbar overflow menu shows all of your taskbar apps on a single menu entry. Also, there are new sharing features, letting you discover and share to more devices.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, applicable to IT admins, in which files copied using Group Policy Preferences might fail or might create empty shortcuts or files using 0 (zero) bytes. Known affected Group Policy Objects are related to files and shortcuts in User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings in Group Policy Editor.
This build for Windows 11 22H2 fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that caused updates to the Microsoft Store to fail, another that stopped you from signing in to various Microsoft 365 apps, and another in which Task Manager stopped working when you switched between light and dark mode or changed the accent color.
Version 22H2, called the Windows 11 2022 Update, is the first feature update released for Windows 11. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new:
The Start menu now lets you create folders to organize your apps. You can now also choose from three layouts for the menu.
The Task Manager has gotten a visual facelift and includes a new efficiency mode that lets you limit how many resources specific apps use.
You can now open File Explorer directly into OneDrive, and you can also see at a glance OneDrive’s sync status, total capacity, and total space used — and get quick access to settings and options for managing storage.
Multiple new touchscreen gestures have been added, including for toggling the Start menu and minimizing apps.
The Clipchamp free video editor now comes as part of Windows 11.
In Snap Layouts, you can now drag a window to the top of the screen and then drop it into a snap layout. In addition, Task View (Windows key + Tab) will show your Snap Groups so you can easily switch between them.
There are also these changes for IT and businesses:
Sys admins get some new group policies for controlling the Start menu, taskbar, and system tray for their users.
Security has been enhanced in several ways that protect against malware, ransomware, and more sophisticated attacks.
For more information about Windows 11 22H2, see our in-depth review.
Updates to Windows 11 original release (version 21H2)
KB5017383 (OS Build 22000.1042) Preview
Release date: September 20, 2022
This build adds more dynamic Widgets content to the taskbar with notification badging. When you open the Widgets board, a banner appears at the top of the board. It provides more information about what triggered the notification badge.
The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused a “blue screen of death” after you changed the display mode while using more than one display. It also fixes a bug that forced the IE mode tabs in a session to reload.
This build fixes a bug in Microsoft accounts (MSA) in which the web dialog that you use to sign in or sign out might not appear. This issue occurs on devices that have installed KB5016691.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There are two known issues in this update, including one in which XPS Viewer might be unable to open XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents in some non-English languages, including some Japanese and Chinese character encodings.
This build gives IT admins the ability to remotely add languages and language-related features. Additionally, they can now manage language scenarios across several endpoint managers. It also enhances Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s ability to identify and intercept ransomware and advanced attacks.
It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused ServerAssignedConfigurations to be null in a few full configuration scenarios, and another that caused Microsoft Edge to stop responding when you use IE mode.
There is one known issue in this build: After installing this update, XPS Viewer might be unable to open XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents in some non-English languages, including some Japanese and Chinese character encodings.
This build fixes a bug that can prevent opening the Start menu. It also includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a modal dialog box, which is a form or dialog box that requires the user to respond before continuing or interacting with other portions of the web page or app.
This build lets you receive urgent notifications when focus assist is on, and gives you the option to update to a newer Windows 11 version at the very first startup of Windows if your device is eligible. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that prevented troubleshooters from opening, one that caused port mapping conflicts for containers, and another that caused Windows to stop working when you enable Windows Defender Application Control with the Intelligent Security Graph feature turned on.
There are two known issues in this update, including one which IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a modal dialog box. In the other issue, after installing this update, some devices might be unable to open the Start menu. On affected devices, clicking or selecting the Start button or using the Windows key on your keyboard might have no effect.
This build addresses an issue that redirects the PowerShell command output so that transcript logs do not contain any output of the command. That means the decrypted password is lost. The build also includes improvements made in the KB5014668 update.
There are two known issues in this update, one in which after installing the update, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open. In the other, after installing this update, IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a form or dialog box that requires the user to respond before continuing or interacting with other portions of the web page or app.
This build adds IP address auditing for incoming Windows Remote Management (WinRM) connections in security event 4262 and WinRM event 91. This addresses an issue that fails to log the source IP address and machine name for a remote PowerShell connection.
The build also introduces search highlights — daily notable events and anniversaries and, for corporate customers, updates from your organization. Search highlights will roll out to Windows 11 customers over the next several weeks.
The build also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that affected the Cloud Clipboard service and prevented syncing between machines after a period of inactivity. It also fixes a bug that failed to hide the Windows Sandbox startup screen after Sandbox starts to run.
There are two known issues in this update, one in which after installing the update, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open. In the other, after installing this update, IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a form or dialog box that requires the user to respond before continuing or interacting with other portions of the webpage or app.
This out-of-band build, which is only available for Windows devices that use Arm processors, fixes a bug that prevented Windows Arm-based devices from signing in using Azure Active Directory (AAD). Apps and services that use AAD to sign in, such as VPN connections, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Outlook, might also be affected.
This build has two known issues. In one, for IT admins, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open. In the other, for all users, Windows devices might be unable use the Wi-Fi hotspot feature. When attempting to use the hotspot feature, the host device might lose the connection to the internet after a client device connects.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which after installing this update, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open.
This build introduces Windows spotlight on the desktop, which automatically displays new pictures on your desktop. It already exists for the lock screen. To turn it on, go to Settings > Personalization > Background > Personalize your background and choose Windows spotlight.
The build also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that caused the Input (TextInputHost.exe) app to stop working, another that caused some users to see a black screen when they sign in and sign out of Windows, and another that caused the Remote Desktop client application to stop working when you end a session.
There is one known issue in this update, in which after installing the update, some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might have issues or might fail to open.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which after installing Windows updates released January 11, 2022 or later on an affected version of Windows, recovery discs created using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app in Control Panel might be unable to start. Recovery discs that were created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app on devices that have installed Windows updates released before January 11, 2022 are not affected by this issue and should start as expected.
This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including a memory leak issue that affected Windows systems that are in use 24 hours each day of the week, another that caused video subtitles to be partially cut off, and another that prevented you from using the minimize, maximize, and close buttons on a maximized app window.
There is one known issue in this update: after IT admins install the Windows updates released January 11, 2022 or later, recovery discs created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app in Control Panel might be unable to start. Recovery discs that were created with this app on devices running Windows updates released before January 11, 2022 are not affected by this issue.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which after installing the Windows updates released January 11, 2022 or later on an affected version of Windows, recovery discs (CD or DVD) created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app in Control Panel might be unable to start. Recovery discs that were created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app on devices that have installed Windows updates released before January 11, 2022 are not affected by this issue and should start as expected.
This build allows Windows to display up to three high-priority “toast” (popup) notifications simultaneously for apps that send notifications for calls, reminders, or alarms using Windows notifications. It also fixes more than two dozen bugs, including one that crashed SystemSettings.exe, and another that affected searchindexer.exe and prevented Microsoft Outlook’s offline search from returning recent emails.
There is one known issue in this update, in which when after IT admins install the Windows updates released January 11, 2022 or later, recovery discs (CDs or DVDs) created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app in Control Panel might be unable to start. Recovery discs that were created by using the Backup and Restore (Windows 7) app on devices which have installed Windows updates released before January 11, 2022 are not affected by this issue and should start as expected.
This build fixes a bug that occurs when you attempt to reset a Windows device and its apps have folders that contain reparse data, such as Microsoft OneDrive or OneDrive for Business. When you select Remove everything, files that have been downloaded or synced locally from OneDrive might not be deleted.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
This build lets you share cookies between Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode and Microsoft Edge, and adds support for hot adding and the removal of non-volatile memory (NVMe) namespaces. It also adds a variety of other features, including the ability to instantly mute and unmute a Microsoft Teams call from the taskbar, and quickly share open application windows directly from your taskbar to a Microsoft Teams call.
It also fixes many bugs, including one that affected the Windows search service and occurred when you queried using the proximity operator, and one that prevented printing properly for some low integrity process apps.
The build fixes a bug that causes a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) modify operation to fail if the operation contains the SamAccountName and UserAccountControl attribute. It also includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and the February 2022 Security Updates notes.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Windows’ audio service stopped responding on some devices that support hardware-accelerated Bluetooth audio, another that prevented icons from appearing on the taskbar of a secondary display, and another that prevented the touch keyboard from appearing on the lock screen when a device has a Microsoft account (MSA).
There is one known issue in this update, in which recent emails might not appear in the search results of the Microsoft Outlook desktop app. For a short-term fix, you can disable Windows Desktop Search, which will cause Microsoft Outlook to use its built-in search.
The out-of-band build fixes two bugs, one of which caused IP Security (IPSEC) connections that contain a Vendor ID to fail. VPN connections using Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) or IP security Internet Key Exchange (IPSEC IKE) could have also been affected. The other fixed bug prevented removable media formatted using the Resilient File System (ReFS) from mounting or caused the removable media to mount in the RAW file format. This issue occured after installing the January 11, 2022 Windows update.
There is one known issue in this update, in which some image editing programs might not render colors correctly on certain high dynamic range (HDR) displays.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
There is one issue in this update, in which after installing Windows 11, some image editing programs might not render colors correctly on certain high dynamic range (HDR) displays.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
This optional update can be downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog or by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Optional updates available.
This builds fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that caused File Explorer to stop working after you closed a File Explorer window, and another that caused flickering when you hovered over icons on the taskbar if you’ve applied a high contrast theme.
The build includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and the November 2021 Security Update notes. It also fixes a bug that causes improper rendering of some user interface elements or when drawing within some apps. And it makes quality improvements to the servicing stack, which is the component that installs Windows updates.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
This non-security build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that caused distortion in the audio captured by voice assistants, and another in Windows Defender Exploit Protection that prevented some Microsoft Office applications from working on machines that have certain processors.
There are two known issues in this build, including one in which Windows print clients might encounter errors when connecting to a remote printer shared on a Windows print server after the build is installed.
This build fixes a bug related to compatibility issues between some Intel “Killer” and “SmartByte” networking software and Windows 11 (original release). It also makes quality improvements to the servicing stack, which is the component that installs Windows updates.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
Windows 11 is the first new version of Windows that Microsoft has released since July 2015, when it launched Windows 10. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in it. (For more details, see our in-depth review of Windows 11.)
The Start menu has been redesigned and slimmed down, and Live Tiles have been eliminated. It’s now easier to find applications to launch and files on which you’ve recently worked.
Snap Layouts lets you group your open windows into one of a half-dozen pre-built screen layouts. Snap Groups helps you quickly switch from one Snap Layout to another.
The Windows look and feel has gotten an overhaul, with rounded windows, spiffier animations, and an overall softer feel. Some built-in apps, such as File Explorer, get a simpler, easier-to-use interface.
You can chat and videoconference directly from the taskbar using Microsoft Teams. However, it isn’t the full Teams service, so the full suite of enterprise Teams features, such the use of channels and being able to search through message archives, isn’t available.
Cortana is still available in Windows 11 but doesn’t appear in the taskbar and is not enabled by default.
For IT, these features are notable:
Windows 11 requires hardware with a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 built into it for security. TPM uses hardware-based encryption to encrypt disks using Windows capabilities like BitLocker, and can stop dictionary attacks against passwords, among other capabilities.
Windows 11 has a once-a-year feature update schedule rather than the two-a-year cycle under Windows 10. That will reduce update time, effort, and headaches.
To help make sure enterprise applications and other software can run on Windows 11, Microsoft has released Test Base for Microsoft 365, an automated testing tool to check application compatibility.
Top projected occupations for this year, and their growth rates, include: data scientists and data analysts, up 5.5%; cybersecurity analysts and engineers, up 5.1%; software developers and engineers up 4.8%; software QA and testers, up 4.3%; computer and information research scientists, also up 4.3%; CIOs and IT Directors, up 3.6%; web developers, also up 3.6%; and web and digital interface designers, up 3.6%.
According to projections from the BLS statistics and job market analytics firm Lightcast, the tech workforce will grow twice as fast in the next 10 years as the overall US workforce. The replacement rate for tech occupations during the 2024-2034 period is expected to average about 6% annually, or approximately 350,000 workers each year, totaling several million through 2034.
Growth in so-called “driver occupations” will expand even faster. Positions in the data science and data analyst, cybersecurity, software development, UI/UX and emerging tech categories, including artificial intelligence, will grow at the fastest rates on a percentage basis, according to CompTIA. “On a volume basis, core infrastructure positions in networking and cloud engineering, along with tech support positions, will continue to serve as the on ramp for many starting a career in technology,” the report stated.
Projections from CompTIA’s report indicate that 20 states and 14 metropolitan areas will exceed the average growth rate this year. Twenty-six metro markets are expected to at least double last year’s job growth rate, reflecting the diversity of tech hub concentrations across the US.
February 2024
US unemployment in the technology sector increased by 0.2% to 3.5% last month, following an upward trend in joblessness in all sectors.
Technology occupations across the economy declined by an estimated 133,000 positions, according to a new report from IT industry group CompTIA.
Overall, the US unemployment rate among all job markets rose by 0.2% to 3.9% in February, and the number of unemployed people increased by 334,000 to 6.5 million. A year earlier, the jobless rate was 3.6%, and the number of unemployed people was 6 million. While unemployment did tick up, February’s rate continued the longest stretch of unemployment below 4% in decades.
There were 275,000 jobs added to the US market last month, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report today. The data shows a significant uptick over January’s 229,000 jobs added to the workforce, but lower than December’s numbers, when 290,000 jobs were added.
“New hiring of tech services and software development personnel is the lone bright spot in February’s lackluster technology employment data,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at IT industry group CompTIA.
Overall tech industry employment increased modestly, employer job postings for future tech hiring were flat, tech occupations throughout the economy declined, according to CompTIA’s latest jobs report.
“We continue to see the lag effect of market developments working their way into government employment data,” Hebert said. “While employers across every sector of the economy demand tech talent spanning the continuum of tech job roles, there are pockets of employers recalibrating their staffing levels.”
IT business consultancy Janco Associates had a similar take on the lackluster IT job market performance in February. It said in its report today that hiring of IT Pros is hindered by the lack of qualified individuals and a slowing economic picture, which “will have a dampening impact on the growth of the IT job market size.
According to Janco’s data, there are currently 4.18 million US workers employed as IT professionals. The rate of growth in the number of new IT jobs has slowed, the firm said.
“There now are just over 121,000 unemployed IT professionals. The IT job market shrank by over 48,600 jobs in calendar year 2023, Janco’s report stated. “Overall that is a flattening of the long term growth rate pattern of IT job market,” the firm said.
One of the more surprising results of the BLS report, however, was that the agency drastically revised its January job gains, which had previously been reported as a leap of 353,000 new jobs. The revised numbers dropped that by more 124,000 jobs.
Tech employers added 185,000 new job postings for positions in February, raising the total number of active tech job postings to more than 436,000, according to CompTIA’s data. California, Texas and Virginia had the largest volumes of tech job postings among the states. At the metro level, Washington, New York, Dallas, Chicago and Boston were the most active markets.
Open positions in artificial intelligence or jobs requiring AI skills continue to hover near the 10% threshold, while positions offering hybrid, remote or work from home options account for about 20% of all tech job postings, CompTIA’s report showed.
Technology companies added an estimated 2,340 workers last month, CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data showed. The technology services and software development sub-sector saw employment increase by 4,200 positions, but those gains were offset by staffing reductions in telecommunications and manufacturing.
Net tech employment spanning tech industry and tech occupation employment totaled more than 9.6 million workers, according to CompTIA’s data.
Over the next quarter — from April through June — the US is expected to lead all other nations in IT hiring, according to IT staffing firm Experis, a subsidiary of ManpowerGroup.
Ger Doyle, head of IT staffing at Experis North America, said while hiring data shows worker demand will remain strong, it will be “more balanced and concentrated.”
Nurses, software developers and front-line retail workers are the three most sought after roles in the U.S. today, according to Doyle.
“In the tech space, AI and machine learning engineers are seeing good growth since last year, with finance and consulting companies as some of the top employers of this specialist tech talent,” Doyle said.
While tech sector layoffs have made headlines over the past year Experis’s data shows the same companies laying people off are also hiring, including top tech companies such as Google, META, Amazon and Apple. However, consuntancies and financial services companies are also hiring – firms such as KPMG, Booz Allen Hamilton, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Slalom Consulting, according to Doyle.
While artificial intelligence and machine learning engineer hiring decreased by 1% in February, the demand for the roles has been trending upward since May 2023, Doyle said.
Wages are following suit, and have remained steady overall, with month-over-month increases in some sectors where remote and hybrid roles have increased, such as IT and business operations.
Hybrid job roles are strongest in the IT (38%) and finance (40%) sectors, according to Experis data.
January 2024
The US added twice as many jobs in January as analysts had expected, though the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7% and tech layoffs continued to plague the IT industry.
Tech companies added nearly 18,000 workers last month, the second consecutive month of job growth. The unemployment rate for tech occupations remained at 3.3%, well below the overall national rate, according to CompTIA. Yet, overall, tech occupations, which span all industries, were down in January.
Tech companies added jobs in several primary sub-sectors:
Technology services and software development (+14,500)
Also, on the rise – job openings in artificial intelligence (AI) and positions that offer hybrid, remote, or work from home options. AI job postings or jobs requiring AI skills increased by about 2,000 positions from December to 17,479 last month, CompTIA said.
Tech occupations across all markets and the broader economy, however, declined by an estimated 117,000 positions. “This month’s data is a helpful reminder of the many moving parts in assessing tech workforce gains or losses,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The expansive tech workforce will simultaneously experience gains and losses reflecting employer short-term and longer-term staffing needs.”
Employers listed more than 392,000 active tech job postings, with nearly 178,000 added last month alone. January’s total of active postings was 33,727 more than the December 2023 figure, the largest month-to-month increase in a year.
There was significant employer interest in filling positions in software development, IT project management, data analysis and science, IT support and systems analysis and engineering. And after several months of decline, the number of job postings offering hybrid, remote or work-from-home options exceeded 30,000 in January, up about 5,000 from December.
“Looking at the bigger picture, we continue to see a post-pandemic rebalancing,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of staffing firm ManpowerGroup NA. “While hiring isn’t as strong as a year ago, it is better than pre-pandemic and has improved month-over-month.
“We’re also seeing an expected post-holiday hangover in retail and logistics, balanced by increases in IT, finance, accounting and engineering,” she continued. “Overall, more jobs are available now for each unemployed worker than there were before the pandemic, creating a stable environment for employers and employees.”
Layoffs in the tech sector have been a thorn in the side of an otherwise healthy industry. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft collectively laid off tens of thousands of workers last year and were among a number of companies that announced planned layoffs for this year. Meta and Google and AWS are cutting back on more ambitious “moonshot” projects, as enterprises are still hesitant to spend big on large software buildouts, etc.
The number of employees laid off at tech companies more than tripled between December and January, according to industry tracker Layoff.fyi. So far this year, 115 tech firms have laid off 30,375 employees, according to the site.
Though layoffs remain below pre-pandemic levels, the number of US employees filing for jobless benefits last week reached an 11-week high. And while the stock market continues to soar, tech companies appear worried.
Many segments of the market remain soft, according to Jack Gold, principal analyst with business consultancy J. Gold Associates. That is likely to continue for at least the next two quarters, he said.
“Tech layoffs might make the headlines, but our real-time data shows a more nuanced story. In many cases, the same companies that are laying people off are also still hiring — they’re just laser focused on hiring to meet demand,” said Ger Doyle, senior vice president of tech employment service Experis.
As an example, Microsoft and Amazon, which recently cut jobs in gaming and streaming, respectively, are simultaneously planning huge investments in AI, according to Doyle.
Experis’s data shows tech demand rebounded in January (up 26% compared to December), with demand for AI/ML engineers growing 19% last month.
“AI hiring is through the roof due to betting on the future next big thing,” Gold said. “But that leaves many more mature industries vulnerable to scaling back. The thinking in many companies is, let’s cut back on ‘fringe’ stuff until we can determine if we’re going to be OK.”
Doyle said it’s important for employess to keep a focus on internal mobility. “We’re also seeing small and mid-size companies have their moment, scooping up tech talent that may have let go by the big hitters. It’s also important to remember that today every company is a tech company — Capital One, Doordash and Reddit are among the top hirers of AI and machine learning talent in the country today.
“Those with tech skills will still find themselves in high demand and able to call the shots on remote working, too…,” Doyle said.
December 2023
Unemployment in the IT industry ticked up from 2% in November to 2.3% in December, according to an analysis of the latest jobs data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Tech occupations throughout the US economy declined by 79,000 positions last month, though the unemployment rate for tech occupations was still well below the overall national unemployment rate of 3.7%.
The up-and-down pattern in tech employment seen over the past few months continued in December, according to CompTIA, an IT trade association.
Tech companies added the largest number of workers since April, but tech occupations throughout the economy declined, according to CompTIA’s analysis of data from the BLS.
Job postings for tech occupations also fell. Active postings totaled nearly 364,000, including 142,295 newly added by employers in December, according to CompTIA.
There’s still strong demand for tech workers; US employers advertised 3.13 million IT job postings during 2023 for a wide range of positions including support, infrastructure, software, data, cybersecurity, and technology enablement.
In December, the top tech job postings by job openings in the US were:
Software Developers and Engineers — 40,490;
IT Project Management, Data Analysts, Emerging, Other — 27,853;
IT Support Specialists — 16,526;
Systems Analysts and Engineers — 12,513;
Data Scientists — 10,293.
(Not every “help wanted” ad results in a new hire; generally, the ratio is one new hire for every eight job postings, according to CompTIA.)
One area that saw marked hiring involved artificial intelligence (AI) roles. Employer hiring for AI and other specialized skills continued to exceed 10% of all tech job postings, CompTIA said.
The push for AI and generative AI hires might be having an adverse effect on entry-level IT positions, especially in customer service, telecommunications, and hosting automation, according to Victor Janulaitis, CEO of IT consultancy Janco Associates, Inc.
“CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible,” Janulaitis said. “They are focusing on eliminating ‘non-essential’ managers, staff, and services. Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities.”
The highest demand continues to be for AI specialists, security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing experts, according to Janulaitis.
Ger Doyle, senior vice president of IT staffing firm Experis, said he still sees “very strong demand” for full stack developers, data scientists, and AI experts. “Seventy-six percent of IT employers say they are facing difficulty finding the talent they need,” Doyle said.
“Supporting people to gain experience and develop new skills will be key to alleviating talent shortages and helping people build employability for the long term,” IT staffing firm ManpowerGroup said in a statement.
Overall, US employers anticipate measured hiring in the first quarter of 2024, while persistent talent shortages continue to impede hiring, according to the latest Employment Outlook Survey from staffing firm ManpowerGroup. With seasonal variations removed from the data, the Net Employment Outlook (NEO) for the U.S. is +35%.
(The NEO is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating an increase in hiring activity and subtracting the percentage of employers who expect a decrease in employment at their location in the next quarter.)
Globally, the US ties for second place in the world (+35%), outpaced by first-place ties, India and The Netherlands (+37%).
“Tech employment remains on solid footing,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Despite the ongoing pattern of mixed signals in the labor market tracking data, the optimistic outlook continues to hold.”
Janulaitis saw it differently, however: “Layoffs at big tech companies continued to hurt overall IT hiring in 2023. CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations. At the same time, with a mean total compensation of $100,000 for ITpPros, IT will continue to be a target for budget cutting.”
Talent mobility is set to be the key trend of the new year — employers need to look for potential vs past performance and help people make lateral moves within their organization, according to ManpowerGroup.
In December, overall US employment rose by 216,000 people, according to the BLS . The overall unemployment rate remained unchanged from the previous month, with the number of unemployed workers was essentially unchanged at 6.3 million.
Employment in professional, scientific, and technical services continued to trend up, adding 25,000 jobs; the industry added an average of 22,000 jobs per month in 2023, about half the average monthly gain of 41,000 in 2022, according to the BLS report.
For all of 2023, the US added 2.7 million jobs. While the overall unemployment rate has remained under 4% over the past two years, last year ended with a higher unemployment rate (3.7%) than in 2022 (3.5%). Employment continued to trend up in government, healthcare, social assistance, and construction, while transportation and warehousing lost jobs.
“The 2024 labor market is all about balance and moderation — restoring equilibrium after four years of pandemic related swings,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of the North America Region for staffing firm ManpowerGroup. “Today’s report…shows continued stabilization and an optimistic start to the New Year for employers and workers. Employers are holding onto their people and hiring where the demand exists.”
Average hourly wage growth accelerated slightly in December, rising by 4.1% over the previous 12 months to $34.27 an hour and continued to beat inflation, boosting workers’ spending power, according to BLS data.
November 2023
The number of new IT jobs being added to the US economy has continued to shrink over the past three months, even as the unemployment rate for tech workers has remained near historical lows.
The unemployment rate for tech workers dropped from 2.2% in October to about 2% in November, according to new data based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Overall, US employment increased by 199,000 in November, and the national unemployment rate edged down to 3.7%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That tracks with October, when employment increased by about 150,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was 3.9%.
While there have been a plethora of big employers announcing tech layoffs, there has also been a redistribution of tech talent to midsize and small companies that “finally got their shot at hiring talent post-pandemic,” according to Becky Frankiewicz, president of ManpowerGroup, North America.
“This talent was scooped up almost in real time by smaller size businesses, so it remains quite difficult to fill tech roles in the country,” Frankiewicz said. “Now that every company is a tech company, we also saw tech talent absorbed into other sectors outside of tech — like retail and hospitality.
“We continue to see strong demand in business analyst roles and software developers as companies continue to work on readying projects for the new year and building out their apps for more clicks this season,” she added.
According to a report from business consultancy Janco Associates, the IT job market shrank by 12,000 open positions in the last three months, leaving 101,000 unemployed IT professionals. At the same time, close to the same number of tech positions remain unfilled.
“CIOs have started to halt hiring IT pros. Demand for contractors and consultants is slow due to economic uncertainty,” Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in the report. “On a bright side, there are still over 120K unfilled jobs for IT professionals.”
Year to date, the IT job market has shrunk by 24,900 positions, according to Janco’s report. Currently, about 4.18 million people are employed as IT professionals in the US, according to Janco.
Janco’s figures show a year-to-date loss of nearly 25,000 IT jobs.
In the past 18 months, the number of IT pros hired each month has moved from 105,00 to 57,000 in October 2023.
“2023 was not a good year for the size of the IT job market,” Janulaitis said. “We currently do not see any change in that trend. In our professional opinion, in 2024 the size of the IT job market will remain at about the same levels as the fourth quarter of 2023, with growth in size limited to minimal levels.”
The number of unfilled positions for IT pros has fallen from 148,000 to 101,000 in the past 18 months. “There still is demand; however, not at the peak of the post-pandemic hiring frenzy,” Janulaitis said.
Not all IT job reports were doom and gloom, however. CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and its workers, echoed ManpowerGroup’s findings, saying that hiring among SMBs is up — way up. And employer demand for AI talent boosted the share of job postings to 12%, the company stated.
Meanwhile, CompTIA’s numbers showed tech unemployment to be at 1.7%, well below ManpowerGroup’s figures, even as it estimated that tech occupations throughout the economy declined by 210,000 last month.
Tech occupations across the economy increased by an estimated 483,000 jobs, according to CompTIA. Tech firms added an estimated 2,159 workers, mainly in IT services and custom software development, CompTIA’s Tech Jobs Report showed.
“With the gains in employer hiring intent for AI talent, the job posting data is finally catching up to the hype,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer. “As an enabling technology, companies hiring for AI skills inevitably need to boost adjacencies in areas such as data infrastructure, cybersecurity, and business process automation.”
Employer hiring activity as measured by job postings for tech positions totaled 155,621 for November. Jobs associated with artificial intelligence (AI) made up 12% of the total, more than 18,000 postings. It’s the first time AI positions have surpassed the 10% threshold. Positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills accounted for 26% of tech job postings last month.
Tech job postings continue to fall. (Click image to enlarge it.)
ManpowerGroup’s Frankiewicz said her company’s analysts anticipated a stabilization of the IT job market with real-time data showing impacts to all sectors, including “always-hot healthcare” and retail.
“In real time, we’re seeing double-digit declines in job postings month over month and year over year that we haven’t seen since 2020. This moderation is welcome for many employers — who are finding it easier to fill vacancies,” Frankiewicz said.
“Time to fill roles has dropped to 49 days in November, from an average of 122 days in 2023 to date. For highly skilled roles like software developer, the time to fill has dropped by more than half, from 106 days to 29,” she added.
“We’re also seeing signs of the heavy hitter big companies taking a back seat and midsize employers with 50-249 employees having their moment — a trend that began with tech talent and is now impacting across the board,” Frankiewicz said.
October 2023
The national job rate for technology workers remained little changed in October, according to an analysis of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The unemployment rate for tech workers in October dropped from 2.2% in September to 2.1% last month, even as there has been a cooling in the broader US job market. Technology companies and employers throughout the economy added workers to their payrolls in October, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and its workers.
Tech occupations across the economy increased by an estimated 483,000 jobs, according to CompTIA. Tech firms added an estimated 2,159 workers, mainly in IT services and custom software development, CompTIA’s Tech Jobs Report showed.
It was the second consecutive month of job growth in the sector — albeit at a modest pace.
“It’s fair to say tech employment gains for the month exceeded expectations, given the recent labor market swings,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Companies continue to focus on the technologies and skills that deliver meaningful business value.”
California, Texas, Virginia, Florida and New York had the highest volumes of tech job postings among the states, CompTIA indicated. The Charlotte, Boston, San Diego, Cleveland and Phoenix markets were also active in October, with month-over-month increases in employer postings for tech jobs.
While the US market added 150,000 jobs in October, the overall unemployment rate rose from 3.8% to 3.9%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of unemployed persons — 6.5 million — changed little in October. However, since their recent lows in April, those numbers are up by 0.5% and 849,000, respectively.
The uptick in unemployment and the slower pace of hiring pointed to a cooling of the employment market. In September, for example, 279,000 jobs were added to the US economy.
Becky Frankiewicz, president of staffing firm ManpowerGroup’s North America region, credited the slowdown for employees being less likely to leave for new roles than they were at the height of the pandemic. Hiring, she said, is solid but settling down.
“Our real-time data shows that in many sectors, especially blue-collar and tech, the market is finding balance,” she said. “The post-pandemic hiring frenzy and summer hiring warmth has cooled and companies are now holding onto employees.”
The tech sector is also cooling from its torrid growth over the past two or more years, but there’s still demand for highly skilled positions including app developers, cyber security experts and data analysts, Frankiewicz said.
“The most in-demand functions remain steady — with most new roles posted in medical and healthcare, sales and IT,” she said.
After a spike in the number of openings for IT professionals in the early summer, the number of unfilled openings for IT professionals fell from 201,000 in August to 160,000 in September. That reflects a pullback from the peak of 254,000 opening in July, according to Frankiewicz.
About 20% of job postings offered work from home or remote work as an option, according to CompTIA. One-quarter were for positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills, including 16,000 associated with artificial intelligence (AI) jobs and skills. Employer hiring for AI positions and skills continues to trend upward, although it’s still a relatively small share of overall tech hiring activity.
Along with AI-skilled workers, software developers, IT support specialists, systems analysts, and data scientists are among the job roles in greatest demand, according to CompTIA.
Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Utah-based research firm Janco Associates, agreed AI and machine learning skills are in demand, though the number of coder openings is falling. At the same time, hiring of IT professionals is hindered by the lack of qualified individuals and a slowing economic picture.
“This will have a dampening impact on the growth of the IT Job Market size,” Janco stated in its latest tech market jobs report.
September 2023
The US unemployment rate remained at 3.8% in September, but the market added 336,000 jobs, far surpassing analyst expectations, according to today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.
Tech employment, however, was a laggard in the generally upbeat US employment report released today, according to analysis by the nonprofit trade association CompTIA. Key metrics of tech hiring activity all slipped in September, its report showed.
Tech jobs among all sectors across the economy fell by an estimated 20,000. The technology sector unemployment rate ticked up from 2.1% in August to 2.2% in September, but it remains well below the national rate of 3.8%, according to CompTIA.
Tech salaries also appeared to be on a downslope, according to an analysis by job matching site Hired, which notes that US inflation-adjusted salaries have plummeted to a five-year low.
Meanwhile, tech sector companies reduced staffing by a net 2,632 positions last month, according to CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data.
Employer job postings for future tech hiring also fell to 184,077 in September, down from nearly 208,000 in August. (Future tech hiring is defined by CompTIA as expected open requisitions.)
“Demand for software positions continues to drive the largest volume of hiring activity. In the aggregate, volumes are equally large in positions spanning IT project management, IT support, data analytics, and systems/cloud infrastructure,” CompTIA’s report stated.
Positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills accounted for 26.5% of all tech jobs postings last month, up from 22% in August. Within emerging tech job postings, 36% were associated with artificial intelligence (AI).
“There is no sugar-coating the off month of tech employment data,” Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer, said in a statement. “Despite the persistently high demand for tech skills on many fronts and positive forward-looking projections, there is a lag in hiring at the moment.”
Jim McCoy, senior vice president of staffing firm ManpowerGroup, echoed Hebert’s sentiments on tech employment, but he said one bright sector has been smaller firms that are still dealing with a skills gap.
“To be sure, large companies have pulled back hiring and even cut workers, especially in technology, as borrowing costs have spiraled higher,” McCoy said. “But many small and midsized businesses that struggled to attract workers are snapping up those laid off and drawing from a more plentiful labor supply as Americans sidelined by COVID return to the workforce.”
The BLS jobs report showed the average hourly earnings for all employees rose by 7 cents, or 0.2%, to $33.88. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 4.2%, the report stated. In September, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 6 cents, or 0.2%, to $29.06.
While hiring may be up overall, real wages in the technology sector appeared to be declining, according to a recent report from job matching site Hired.
In its annual State of Tech Salaries Report, released in late September, Hired said the tech talent market has seen dramatic shifts from 2022 to the first half of 2023, fueling tension and misalignment between recruiter and job candidate expectations.
Following a year of record-breaking inflation and market turbulence, local salaries in the US, including those for fully in-person or hybrid roles, have experienced their most significant year-over-year decline, dropping by 3% from $161,000 to $156,000. In contrast, salaries in the UK have seen a 4% increase, rising from £82,000 to £86,000, according to Hired.
When adjusted for inflation, local salaries decreased 9% from $141K in 2022 to $129K by mid-2023, while remote salaries decreased 6% from $143K in 2022 to $134K by mid-2023.
Amid the rise of generative AI and a tightening of corporate budgets, junior talent (workers with less than four years of experience) have experienced the most significant decrease in salaries — nearly 5% year-over-year — and demand, with posted roles on the platform lowering from 45% in 2019 to 25% in the first half of 2023, according to Hired’s report.
“Compared to last year, we are witnessing a seismic shift in tech employee and employer preferences. The surging demand for experienced tech talent on our platform and employers’ increasing reliance on AI tools point to an ever-growing skills gap. This challenge will only heighten as companies reduce their hiring locations amid their return to the office and limit their access to qualified talent,” said Josh Brenner, CEO at Hired.
“With the future talent pipeline at risk of a deficit, companies cannot afford to disregard high-quality talent at any level. Instead, they must embrace diverse candidates with transferable skills who can adeptly address industry challenges, especially amid rapid advancements driven by emerging technologies like AI,” Brenner added.
The highest paid tech workers were engineering managers, particularly with the introduction of AI tools and increased cybersecurity challenges. Engineering managers earn on average $202,000 in the US and £118,000 in the UK — a notable 10% increase from £107,000 at the end of 2022.
Specialized engineers are the most in demand in 2023: Employers on Hired’s marketplace have a higher demand for specialized engineers, especially for AI applications such as ML, as well as cybersecurity, data, and back-end engineers.
AI isn’t an immediate threat to job security, but it could present challenges for job seekers in the coming years: While the majority of surveyed candidates (87%) currently do not view AI as the primary threat to their roles, a significant portion of employers (47%) project they will leverage AI to reduce headcounts by 2029.
Overall, there were job gains in leisure and hospitality, government, healthcare, professional services, scientific and technical services, and social assistance.
Employment in professional, scientific, and technical services increased by 29,000 jobs in September, in line with the average monthly gain of 27,000 over the prior 12 months, BLS data showed.
Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, identified the 10 AI skills listed most often on client open job requisitions for IT professionals. The one AI skill that was included in more than 60% of those requisitions: ChatGPT.
“Since its launch in November of 2022, ChatGPT has been implemented by the greatest number of organizations,” Janulaitis said in a blog post. “As a result, companies are recruiting IT professionals who have the skills to help them with using ChatGPT for content generation, task automation and scripting… and more.”
Other skills listed in open IT job requisitions: Natural Language Processing, TensorFlow, Image Processing, PyTorch, Generative AI content creation, Midjourney, AI Chatbot, Model Tuning, and Stable Diffusion.
PricewaterhouseCooper’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey found sizeable pockets of the global workforce eager to learn new skills, embrace artificial intelligence (AI), and tackle new challenges — even as many companies fail to tolerate debate and dissenting ideas, or even small-scale failures. Meanwhile, many workers are restless: fully 26% say they plan to quit their job in the next 12 months, up from 19% last year.
August 2023
Though they remain low, unemployment figures have seesawed over the past six months, a phenomenon that has some tech industry experts scratching their heads trying to make sense of what may be the new norm.
Last month, unemployment in technology fields increased along with the overall US unemployment rate, which rose from 3.5% in July to 3.8% in August, according to new data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). At the same time, total nonfarm employment across all markets increased by 187,000 jobs in August.
The mixed messages in last Friday’s employment report carried over to the tech industry and workforce, according an analysis by industry group CompTIA.
Tech unemployment had dropped from 2.3% in June to 1.8% in July, as tech firms and employers in other industries added workers after a spate of high-profile layoffs in the tech industry.
The latest BLS report, however, found that employers across the US economy reduced tech occupations by an estimated 189,000 positions, pushing the unemployment rate for tech jobs up to 2.1% — almost where it was in June, CompTIA said.
“The usual caveats of monthly fluctuations in labor market data apply,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The seesawing between strong and lagging tech jobs reports is undoubtedly confusing, but the overall macro trend of growth in the depth and breadth of the tech workforce remains steady.”
Employer job postings for future tech hiring (a separate category tracked by CompTIA) totaled nearly 208,000 in August, a slight decline of 1.4% from the previous month. But job postings for information security analysts increased 19% from July to August to more than 12,000 postings. Other in-demand occupations include software developers, tech support specialists, computer systems analysts, and data scientists.
“With ‘pandemic paranoia’ about hiring lingering, companies are continuing to hold onto their workers, remembering how hard it was to rehire,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of global staffing firm ManpowerGroup’s North America Region. “Essential workers we valued through the pandemic may not be feeling so essential, as real-time job postings for blue collar roles like operations and logistics/maintenance and repair are down 43% month over month” based on ManpowerGroup’s real-time data.
“This Labor Day is a great occasion to celebrate the resilience of the American worker,” she said. “Although we are seeing a slowdown, the labor market remains healthy, and we are optimistic about the future.”
Positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, accounted for 23% of all tech jobs postings in August. Among emerging tech job postings, 37% were associated with AI, with California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia showing the highest numbers of AI-related job postings.
New data from IT staffing firm Experis found that an increasing number of companies surveyed are either adopting or planning to adopt emerging technologies in their recruiting processes. That comes as more than three quarters (78%) of IT organizations report difficulty finding talent with the right skills — a 17-year high.
According to Experis, 58% of employers believe AI and virtual reality will create jobs, not kill them. Additionally, cybersecurity, technical support, and customer experience remain high-priority IT staffing areas. Half of employers say they are training and upskilling their current workforce to address staffing challenges.
“The integration of AI, machine learning, VR/AR, and other emerging technologies is rapidly transforming industries and driving the need for an adaptable workforce,” said Experis Senior Vice President Ger Doyle. “We are seeing companies embrace these new technologies with many seeking to hire or upskill existing talent to take advantage of potential productivity gains. Smart employers know that embracing digitization and nurturing human talent will enhance their readiness to succeed in this era of rapid technological advancement.”
July 2023
The unemployment rate for tech jobs dropped from 2.3% to 1.8% in July, as technology companies and employers in other industry sectors added workers, according to analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.
The overall US unemployment rate also dropped slightly last month from 3.6% in June to 3.5%, according to BLS data. About 187,000 non-farm jobs were added, less than the average monthly gain of 312,000 over the prior 12 months. In July, jobs grew in healthcare, social assistance, financial activities, and wholesale trade, according to the BLS.
The overall unemployment rate has ranged from 3.4% to 3.7% since March 2022.
According to BLS data, employment in professional, scientific, and technical services continued to trend up in July with 24,000 positions filled.
Tech sector companies increased their staffing by 5,432 employees, according to CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data. Leading the way in new IT hires were custom software services and systems design;and PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing.
IT salaries were on the rise, too, according to a mid-year analysis by business consultancy Janco Associates, as more companies invested in IT. The emphasis in recent years has been on both e-commerce and mobile computing. And with growing numbers of cyberattacks and data breaches, CIOs are looking to harden their sites and lock down data access to protect all of their electronic assets, according to Janco Associates.
The lone drag on the July data was in employer job postings for tech occupations, which slipped to from 236,000 in June to 204,400 for the month of July.
“Given the pace of tech hiring, it remains a fairly tight market for tech talent,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer for CompTIA, said in a statement. “It continues to be an environment where employers must supplement recruiting efforts with proactive talent development strategies.”
While the drop in tech sector unemployment is notable, it’s not uncommon for rates to fluctuate, according to Herbert. Over the past 5.5 years dating back t0 January 2018, the tech unemployment rate saw a 1/2-point or higher rise or fall from the previous month 27 times, which translates to 40% of the time, he said in an email to Computerworld.
In comparison, the national unemployment saw the same kind of variation 22 times, or 33% of the time. Herbert said.
“Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide data at a granular enough level to pinpoint the exact tech occupation categories driving changes in the unemployment rate,” Herbert said. “The employer job posting data indicates hiring activity is broad-based spanning all the major job families within tech.”
The way the BLS tracks job seekers also matters; it only keeps tabs on people actively looking for employment, Herbert noted.
“There could be scenarios whereby certain segments of workers go uncounted in the unemployment rate because they put their job search on pause — perhaps to re-evaluate their job search strategy, to pursue additional training, to recharge their batteries, etc.,” he said. “This could have the effect of artificially lowering the unemployment rate.”
There is a difference, however, between the long-term unemployed who might lack skills demanded in the labor market and those who voluntarily put a job search on hold. “My sense is tech workers in this position tend to fall in the latter category given most have in demand skills,” Herbert added.
Janco Associates painted a somewhat gloomier picture of the IT jobs landscape: it said that year to date, IT jobs shrank by 5,500 positions. That’s in contrast to 125,900 jobs created during the same period of 2022.
The number of unfilled jobs for IT pros shrank from more than 200,000 in December to just over 120,000 at the end of July, Janco’s latest report showed. It argued that the growth of the IT job market stopped in January, with a loss of 2,600 positions, with other losses piling up in succeeding months.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best,” Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement.
In the second quarter of 2023, the “big losers” were computer system design jobs (down 10,500); telecommunications (down 5,500); content providers (down 4,700); and other information service providers (down 6,600). Janulaitis said.
Many roles, especially in telecommunications and cloud providers are being automated and eliminated, he said. CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible and focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers, staff, and services.
“Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities. The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros,” Janulaitis said.
As part of an effort to boost return on investment, CIOs are looking to consolidate the cloud service providers they support.
“This will impact the job prospects at those providers,” Janulaitis said. “There continues to be a general belief there will be an economic downturn by many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IT pros and increasing technology-related expenditures. This has impacted the salaries of IT pros with a major impact on the compensation of IT executives.”
Meanwhile, according to CompTIA, the strongest demand was for software developers and engineers, IT project managers, data analysts, IT support specialists and emerging technologies. Positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills accounted for about 23% of all tech job postings in July.
Within the emerging tech category, 35% of job postings referenced artificial intelligence (AI) work and skills, CompTIA said.
June 2023
IT workers are well positioned to not only keep their jobs but to get big bumps in pay when looking for new opportunities, according to analysis of jobs data released today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Overall, the US unemployment rate dropped slightly from 3.7% in May to 3.6% in June, with about 206,000 jobs added, according to the BLS. The number of jobs added last month was down 100,000 from May.
Wages also increased as employers continued to struggle to find workers. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees grew 4.4% in June over the same period last year to $28.83, according to the BLS.
Tech sector companies increased headcount by 5,348 jobs last month, according to an analysis of BLS data by industry group CompTIA. Among the six top tech occupation categories, three have shown positive gains through the first half of 2023: IT and custom software services and systems design; PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing; and cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting.
Overall, however, tech occupations throughout the economy declined by an estimated 171,000, according to CompTIA. The unemployment rate for tech jobs edged up from 2% to 2.3%, still well below the national unemployment figure.
Software developers were in particularly in high demand, according to CompTIA. Job openings had dropped by more than 2,700 positions in May, but in June software development positions rose by more than 15,700 openings. Job openings for IT project managers and data scientists also lept in June, up by 8,633 and 3,929, respectively.
Other IT positions that saw marked increases included system analysts, IT support specialists, web developers, cybersecurity analysts and engineers, and database adminitrators, according to CompTIA.
Overall, tech-related employment mirrored June’s overall easing of the labor market nationally, CompTIA said. Tech occupations throughout the economy fell back and job postings for future hiring were down modestly, with jobs offering remote/hybrid work arrangements falling off even as opportunities to work with artificial intelligence rose in the emerging job market.
“The latest tech employment figures do lag some, but the underlying fundamentals remain unchanged. All signs point to a continuation of the growth trajectory for the tech workforce,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA, said in a statement.
Ahead of the BLS jobs report, HR software provider ADP released its own jobs report Thursday saying private sector jobs surged by 497,000 in June, well ahead of the 267,000 gain in May and much higher than the 220,000 analysts had estimated.
“According to the Department of Labor, [ADP’s] numbers were way off,” said Jamie Kohn, senior director of human resources research at Gartner. “I do think we’re seeing a slight slowdown in jobs at the moment, but there’s such a shortage of talent, companies are trying to keep up.”
Employment rates for prime age workers — 18- to 54-year-olds — is back to pre-Covid numbers and companies are reticent to make further cuts even as economists continue to chirp about a possible recession.
“We have data that shows on median, people are getting a 15% increase when they move from one job to another,” Kohn said. “They’re actually getting higher pay bumps than they thought they would.” On average, most job seekers expect an 8% increase in pay in a new job, according to a new Gartner survey.
Another trend putting pressure on the job market is an increasing number of Baby Boomer retirements, leaving management positions and other senior jobs unfilled.
“We’re about half way through Baby Boomer [generation] retirement. The market is likely to get tighter as the latter half of the Baby Boomer generation retires over the next decade or so. Some people also retired early during and coming out of the pandemic,” Kohn said. “I’m hearing from a lot of HR leaders who are trying to figure out how to convince people to delay retirement because they’re finding it hard to find people.”
IT workers in particular are in demand, Kohn said. The Gartner survey showed 78% of job market candidates have multiple offers on the table. That compares to overall job seekers, 72% of whom had multiple job offers.
While organizations across all US industries are expected to boost hiring in the third quarter, employers in the IT market have the most aggressive hiring plans, according to global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.
Unmet demand for talent is highest in IT-related fields, with 78% of employers in IT reporting challenges in hiring, according to an earlier report from ManpowerGroup. This suggests that tech workers who find themselves laid off will soon be reabsorbed into the market.
ManpowerGroup’s real-time data is showing plentiful opportunities in logistics, job openings grew 25% this quarter, sales and business development were up 10%, medical (up 9%) and finance (up 8%).
“We’re seeing the relationship between employers and workers continue to evolve, particularly for workers with in-demand skills,” Becky Frankiewicz, ManpowerGroup’s regional president and chief commercial officer, said. “As ‘pandemic paranoia’ about hiring lingers, companies are holding on to their workers as layoffs calm and permanent roles are more in demand than temporary.”
Hybrid work is also on the uptick, with all industries offering more remote/hybrid roles month-over-month and tech remote work up 34%-40% in June, according to ManpowerGroup. And as the relentless advance of AI continues, employers are betting on people. Companies are investing in the talent and skills they have in house, with organizations re-skilling and up-skilling more than ever.
After some high-profile layoffs by tech companies this year and last, many IT workers are seeking employment in industries they consider more stable, such as financial services, according to Kohn.
Workforce participation by women remains lower than for men. A key reason for that is US employers are not as generous with flexible work, paid maternal leave and childcare assistance as their European counterparts.
“If you have to spend half or more of your income for childcare, no reason to go back to work,” Kohn said, adding that what’s needed is an overhaul of worker benefits rights by the federal government. Another wrinkle: US immigration has seen steep declines — even before the pandemic — further reducing the chance for a glut in job openings.
May 2023
Like April before it, the month of May showed mixed results for tech employment in the US.
Technology companies shed an estimated 4,725 jobs — a figure that includes nontechnical workers — in May, according to an analysis of the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures by IT industry group CompTIA. Job postings for open technology positions also eased off, down to about 234,000 from April’s 300,000, according to a new report from CompTIA.
At the same time, however, the number of technology jobs throughout the economy rose by 45,000, according to the report.
Those mixed results for the tech workforce reflect the unpredictability of the overall labor market. US employers added a stronger-than-expected 339,000 jobs in May, but the overall US unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage points to hit 3.7%, while the number of unemployed people rose by 440,000 to reach 6.1 million, according to BLS data released today.
Responding to the BLS data, global staffing firm ManpowerGroup also commented on the mixed results for tech pros: “Our data shows cooling in IT, with posted roles down 12% compared to last month. Yet those let go are being quickly reabsorbed, often into midsize companies.”
Indeed, while the national unemployment rate has ranged between 3.4% and 3.7% since March 2022, the unemployment rate for tech occupations has hovered near 2% throughout that time frame. In fact, tech unemployment decreased slightly in May, from 2.1% to 2.0%, according to CompTIA’s analysis of the BLS data.
“Reassuringly, the positives for the month outweigh the negatives, confirming the tech workforce remains on solid footing,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA.
The most in-demand roles among tech job postings include software developers and engineers; IT project managers, data analysts, and other emerging tech roles; IT support specialists; systems analysts and engineers; and data scientists. Approximately 20% of job postings are in emerging tech fields or require emerging tech skills, including nearly 15,000 postings that mention AI skills, according to CompTIA.
April 2023
Technology companies added 18,795 workers in April, the largest number since August 2022, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures and an industry analysis of that information.
The data revealed a mixed bag of results for tech workers last month. Technology jobs throughout the economy declined by 99,000 positions even as employer job postingspassed 300,000 — a level last reached in October, according to a report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
Both the overall US unemployment rate, at 3.4%, and the number of unemployed, at 5.7 million, changed little in April, according to BLS data released today. The national unemployment rate has ranged between 3.4% and 3.7% since March 2022.
The unemployment rate for tech occupations inched up to 2.3% in April from 2.2% in March, still well below the national unemployment rate, according to CompTIA’s evaluation.
“It was another all-too-familiar month of mixed labor market signals,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The surprisingly strong tech sector employment gains were offset by the pause in tech hiring across the economy.”
Still, IT executives and managers are among the most highly paid workers in US corporations, according to a new report based on the latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
A BLS report published last last month — the Occupational Employment and Wages Summary for 2022 — showed computer and information research scientists earn on average about $155,880 a year. Database architects are the second-highest earners with just over $136,540 in annual compensation. Software developers followed at $132,000 a year.
Putting upward pressure on wages has been a combination of scarce tech talent and low unemployement rates.
Computer and IT managers are among the most highly paid positions in the US, earning an average $173,670 across all industries and occupations; that’s even more than the top executives in all industries and occupations ($129,050), according to business consultancy Janco Associate.
In terms of employment in the tech industry, software developers held just over 1.5 million positions in the US, more than double the 700,000 positions held by computer user support specialists. Computer systems analysts, with 500,000 jobs, were in third place, according to Janco’s report.
Late last month, job search website Lensa published a research study showing “computer occupations” are among the most in-demand jobs in the US, second only to “health diagnostic and treatment practitioners.” More than 3.1 million potential applicants clicked on open job positions in the IT arena, according to Lensa.
Overall, the number of workers not in the labor force who currently want a job increased by 346,000 over the month to 5.3 million, according to the BLS. “These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job,” the BLS said.
Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.6%, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.4%, were unchanged in April. These measures remain below their pre-pandemic February 2020 levels, 63.3%and 61.1%, respectively.
Global Staffing firm ManpowerGroup viewed the BLS data from April as a “promise of spring” for the job market, with a higher-than-expected 253,000 jobs added.
Employers continue to hire for in-demand skills while pulling back on non-essential headcount, the company said in a statement to Computerworld. The company also noted some negative trends that emerged with the BLS’s revisions to its March data showing 100,000 fewer jobs, “and the three-month average is tracking down.”
“Today, we’re seeing very concentrated demand with medical, IT, and sales representing 44% of all open positions,” Becky Frankiewicz. president of ManpowerGroup North America said. “That data includes all real-time available jobs across the country. [Job] openings are the lowest they’ve been in two years.”
Employers listed more than 300,000 job postings for tech positions in April, signaling demand for tech talent continues to hold up, according to CompTIA. In March, there were 316,000 tech job openings.
Within the tech sector, three occupation categories paced April hiring, led by IT services and custom software development (+12,700 additional jobs). Job gains were also reported in cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting (+7,300 additional jobs) and PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing (+3,200 additional jobs).
Employer job postings for tech positions were widely dispersed geographically and by industry. Employers in administrative and support (32,861), finance and insurance (32,820) and manufacturing (31,959) were among the most active last month.
The number of tech job postings that specify remote work or hybrid work arrangements as an option continued to trend upward in April, with more than 65,000 positions across the country; software developers, IT project managers, data analysts and jobs in emerging technologies topped the list
Among metropolitan markets, Washington, DC, New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago had the highest volumes of tech job postings. And Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle saw the largest month-over-month increases in postings, according to CompTIA.
March 2023
Tech sector employment, which includes all workers on the payrolls of tech companies, declined in March by an estimated 839 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and IT industry group CompTIA.
Employer job postings for tech positions for March, however, increased by 76,546 month-over-month, for a total of 316,000 openings; the tech unemployment rate remained unchanged from February at 2.2%.
Technology employment across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 197,000 positions for the month, according to CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data. “This represents the highest level of employer hiring activity as measured by job postings in seven months,” CompTIA said in its Tech Jobs Report.
More than 4.18 million people are now employed as IT professionals in the US, according to industry research firm Janco Associates.
“As a forward-looking indicator, the rebound in employer tech job postings is a notable positive,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer. “While caution is in order given the state of uncertainty, the data suggests segments of employers may be stepping back into the tech talent market.”
Overall, the US economy added 236,000 jobs in March, according to the BLS, a slight slowdown compared to recent months; that could mean the jobs market may be responding to recent interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.
At the same time the number of jobs being added to the economy dropped slightly, the overall unemployment rate dipped a tenth of a point to 3.5%, remaining near 50-year historic lows.
IT industry advocacy group CompTIA’s March Tech Jobs Report.
The total number of unemployed US workers, at 5.8 million, changed little in March; that measure has shown little net movement since early 2022, according to BLS data.
“The labor market posted solid if not spectacular gains,” Diane Swonk, chief economist and managing director at KPMG LLP, wrote in a blog post. “Hiring in both the public and the private sectors slowed. Hiring by firms with less than 250 workers continues to drive gains in the private sector. Those firms are the most vulnerable to the recent tightening of credit conditions,”
Even as unemployment remains low, there have been a number of high-profile layoffs in the technology industry and elsewhere during the past six or so months; industry experts have said many organizations over-hired during the COVID-19 pandemic and are now having to trim their workforces, a so-called “course correction.”
This year, more than 168,000 workers have been laid off at tech firms, according to industry tracker Layoffs.fyi.
Last month, job search site Indeed fired 15% of its workforce, or about 2,200 employees. The layoffs came from nearly every team and function within the company, CEO Chris Hyams said, and were in response to a job market that has cooled “after the recent post-COVID boom,” he said.
“US total job openings were down 3.5% year-over-year, while sponsored job volumes were down 33%,” Hyams said. “In the US, we are expecting job openings will likely decrease to pre-pandemic levels of about 7.5 million, or even lower over the next two to three years.”
While big tech firms such as Google and Microsoft may be letting workers go, the layoffs aren’t dominated by IT talent. Most of the layoffs are occurring on the business side of the corporate world. In fact, there are fewer IT workers than job openings — a lot fewer.
Positions for software developers and engineers accounted for the largest share of job postings in March, according to CompTIA. Employers are also in the market for IT support specialists, systems engineers and analysts, IT project managers, cybersecurity analysts, and engineers. About one in five tech job postings offer remote or hybrid work arrangements as an option.
James Neave, head of data science at job search site Adzuna, said despite the latest spate of layoffs, which include Apple and Walmart, job growth has exceeded expectations for 12 consecutive months, “the longest streak since 1998.
“Today’s closely watched jobs report gives another healthy reading on the job market and the strength of hiring,” he said invia email to Computerworld.
On Adzuna, advertised job vacancies in the U.S. totalled 8.3 million in March. As a result, organizations need to continue working to attract and retain highly qualified talent amid shortages and skills gaps, Neave said.
“To win workers, organizations are improving their benefits and providing care for the whole person in such a stressful economic time,” he said. “Boosting benefit offerings also helps to slow staff turnover and reduce the risk of burnout, improving morale as well as the bottom line.”
February 2023
Tech sector employment fell by 11,184 positions in February, a modest reduction of 0.2% of the total tech industry workforce of more than 5.5 million.
Unemployment in the tech sector also jumped from 1.5% in January to 2.2%, in February, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
The unemployment rate for tech occupations is still below the national rate of 3.6%, which saw a .1% increase from January.
The number of technology occupations in all industries declined by .6% or 38,000 positions, according to CompTIA’s report. Tech occupations in the US economy still total more than 6.4 million workers. Among all tech industries, tech manufacturing added a net new 2,800 jobs, the fifth consecutive month of positive gains.
Employer job postings for tech positions also declined by about 40,000, to just over 229,000 in February. Most metropolitan markets experienced fallbacks from January to February, with a few exceptions, according to CompTIA.
“As expected, the lag in labor market data means prior layoffs announcements are now appearing in BLS reporting,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer for CompTIA. “Context is critical. The recent pullback represents a relatively small fraction of the massive tech workforce. The long-term outlook remains unchanged with demand for tech talent powering employment gains across the economy.”
While there have been hundreds of highly publicized layoffs among tech companies, the vast majority of employees being fired are not in IT positions, according to industry analysts. In fact, there remains a dearth in tech talent to fill more than 145,000 IT job openings.
IT consultancy Janco Associates offered a somewhat more pessimistic view of the IT job market.
“Layoffs, for the most part, did not hit developers. Rather they were focused on data center operations, administrative and HR roles related to recruiting, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Some roles, especially in telecommunications and data center operations are being automated and eliminated,” Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “Driving this is CIOs and CFOs who are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible. They are focusing on eliminating non-essential managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers.”
The highest demand, Janulaitis said, continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT professionals. Other industry research shows data analysts and AI professionals are also in high demand.
“The general belief there will be an economic downturn is high for many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IP pros and increasing technology-related expenditures,” Janulaitis said.
In 2022, 267,000 new jobs were added to the IT market. Those new jobs were in addition to the 213,000 jobs created in 2021.
In 2023, while there are more jobs being added, that number is declining. In January, for example, for the first time in 25 months, there was a net loss in the number of jobs in the IT Job Market. That trend is continuing, Janco said. In the first two months of 2023, the IT job market shrank by 44,900 jobs.
“CIOs and CFOs have started to slow the rate of creating new IT jobs and hiring IT professionals,” Janco said in its report. “The three month moving average for IT job market growth trend for IT professionals shows a significant downward trend. Inflation and recessionary trends are driving this.”
Layoffs and economic uncertainty drove CIOs and CFOs to slow IT hiring in February, according to Janulaitis.
“Layoffs at big tech companies are having an adverse on overall IT hiring. More CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations,”Janulaitis said.
The growth of the IT job market stopped with a decline of 10,000 jobs in January and 13,400 jobs in February, according to Janco. That was the first loss in the number of IT Pros employed in over 27 months. The three-month moving average of IT job market growth went negative with a trend line that shows a further decay in IT job market growth.”
Overall US employment rose by 311,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. That was vastly higher than the 225,000 jobs predicted by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. In January, about half a million jobs were added, according to BLS data.
The number of people quitting jobs (3.9 million) decreased, in February, while layoffs and other firings (1.7 million) increased. Even with the unemployment rate ticking up slightly, are still nearly two jobs (10.8 million) for every unemployed worker (5.9 million), according to a BLS data. In 2022, the annual average number of job openings was 11.2 million.
Last month, U.S. consumer spending also rose to its highest level in over nearly two years.
Across all industries, the number of people who were without jobs for a short period of time (less than 5 weeks) increased by 343,000 to 2.3 million in February, offsetting a decrease in the prior month. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), changed little in February and accounted for 17.6% of the total unemployed or 1.1 million people.
Job postings for technology positions rose the most in scientific and tech services industry sector (35,257), finance and insurance (24,735) and manufacturing (20,246).
Overall, in the US job market, the average hourly earnings grew 4.6% year-over-year, which was down from last year but above the pre-pandemic pace, BLS data showed.
The ongoing tech talent shortage also lifted IT salaries, but future pay increases will be less than expected, according to Janco Associates.
On average, IT salaries rose by 5.61% in 2022 and were expected to increase by as much as 8% this year, according to earlier reports by Janco.
“Many CIOs’ 2023 IT budgets planned to increase salaries for IT pros to address the inflationary pressures faced by employees are now being reviewed,” Janulaitis said. “Given these facts, we believe that median salaries for IT pros in 2023 will be 3% to 4% salary above 2022 levels, not the 7% to 8% that was budgeted.”
The mean compensation for all IT pros in 2023 is now $101,323; for IT pros in large enterprises it tops $102,000; and for executives it averages $180,000.
“Companies that do not live up to employees’ expectations may find that even if they are able to get candidates in the door, those candidates leave as soon as a better offer comes along,” Gartner Research analyst Mbula Schoen wrote in a Q&A post this week.. “Additionally, there are increasingly opportunities for IT jobs outside traditional tech companies, so it’s important to look beyond just the tech provider community to truly grasp the state of the tech talent crunch.”
January 2023
The unemployment rate in the technology job market decreased for the second month in a row, dropping to 1.5% in January from 1.8% in December.
Even with the marked drop in unemployment, it was a mixed bag for the technology marketplace, after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its January jobs report on Friday. There was a decline in current employment and an increase in employer job postings for potential future hiring, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
While the overall US unemployment rate dropped to a figure not seen since 1969 (to 3.4%, from 3.5% a month earlier), the number of technology workers hired in January fell into negative territory for the first time in more than two years. Technology occupations throughout the economy declined by 32,000 for the month, representing a reduction of -0.5%, according to CompTIA. Technology companies also shed 2,489 positions in January, according to CompTIA.
Overall, however, the US added 517,000 jobs in January, according to BLS numbers.
The BLS also said on Friday it had significantly revised its November data, describing it as a “major revision reflecting content and coding changes.”
In November 2022, the BLS indicated U.S. technology companies added approximately 2,500 net new jobs versus the mistakenly reported decrease of 151,900 jobs in earlier reporting.
“The change materially affects the sub-sector of tech companies providing search and platform services, while the revisions were a net positive for sub-sectors such as IT services and data,” CompTIA said.
ComTIA also uses employer online job posting data to predict the number of job postings for future tech hiring, and that number reversed last month’s dip and increased by 22,408 to 268,898 for 2023.
The fact that the unemployment rate in the tech market still dropped in January indicates many laid off workers were re-hired and absorbed back into the labor market, according to CompTIA. The tech unemployment rate is also an indication that many of the layoffs occurring within technology organizations are non-technical workers, such as sales, marketing or related business support positions.
Among industries, the highest volumes of job postings for tech positions were reported in the professional, scientific and technical services (40,712), finance and insurance (30,576) and manufacturing (24,269) sectors.
“Despite the unusual backward revision by the BLS and the routine fluctuations in monthly labor market data, much of the big picture tech employment picture remains the same,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA said in a statement. “Undoubtedly, some companies over- hired and are now scaling back. The low tech unemployment rate and steady hiring activity by employers confirms the long-term demand for tech talent across many sectors of the economy.”
While tech companies shed employees over the past few months in highly publicized reports, overall, 2022 saw an increase of about 264,500 new jobs to the IT job Market, according to IT industry consultancy Janco Associates. Those new jobs were in addition to the 213,000 jobs created in 2021.
In January, the growth of the IT job market stopped with a decline of 4,700 jobs. That was the first loss in over 27 months, according to Janco. The three-month moving average of IT job market growth went negative with a trend line that shows a further decay in IT job market growth. At the same time, there is an excess of 109,000 unfilled jobs for IT Pros due to a lack of qualified candidates.
A lack of qualified candidates has lead to increased demand for tech workers raising overall salaries for all IT positions by 5.6%, with small-and-medium-sized businesses seeing an average increase of 7.74% increase, with their median compensation increasing to $100,434 as reported in Janco’s 2023 IT Salary Survey.
U.S.-based employers announced 102,943 cuts in January, a 136% increase from the 43,651 cuts announced in December, according to global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. That’s 440% higher than the 19,064 cuts announced in the same month in 2022, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s report. Forty-one percent of January’s job cuts were in tech.
Yet demand for those to fill jobs requiring tech skills is rising.
“That’s a ton of expertise missing from an industry that needs the brightest to get brighter,” said Vince Padua, CTO at Axway, a tech company that sells an API management platform.
And it’s going to get worse, he added, as 86% IT leaders expect an expertise gap increase in coming years.
“As cloud computing, AI and microservices are developed and adopted, the skills required to support them constantly evolve,” Padua said. “Companies need more employees with the right skills and experience – plus IT infrastructure and enterprise software experts with specialized skills in cybersecurity, data analytics and cloud architecture.”
IT jobs took the top spot in a list of the 25 best jobs in the US, according to online job site Indeed. The top job slot went to full stack developer, which offers a median annual salary of $130,000 and allows for a mostly remote or hybrid workplace..
Eight tech jobs were among the top 10 positions on Indeed’s list this year; that compares with just two tech jobs in the top 10 on last year’s list. In 2022, tech jobs were moving down the top jobs list; now, a year later, tech jobs are surging upward. This year, 11 of the top 25 jobs, or 44%, were tech positions. By comparison, in 2022, just 25% of the top 25 jobs were tech-related.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are there but not in as broad in scope as in 2022. Layoffs, for the most part, did not hit developers. Rather they were focused on data center operations, administrative and HR roles related to recruiting, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion),” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis.
Some roles, especially in telecommunications and data center operations are being automated and eliminated, Janulaitis noted, but those operations will continue to hire coders and developers.
The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT professionals, according to Janco. Currently, there are over 109,000 unfilled jobs in the IT job market — a drop from 216,000 in November.
Janulaitis blamed continued concern over a possible recession as one reason organizations are eliminating jobs.
“More CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations,” Janulaitis said.
According to the latest BLS data analyzed by Janco, there are now just over 4.2 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US., and layoffs at big tech companies are having an adverse on overall IT hiring.
“The possibility of the economic downturn is very likely and is impacting all decisions that increase technology-related expenditures. Work from home is being minimized as companies are requiring employees to be in the office at least 3 to 4 days a week,” Janulaitis said. “Mid-level managers are now having to justify most positions where the IT Pro is not working in the office. Companies that are forced to hire replacements, do so with the caveat that payroll costs remain flat. “
The 2023 IT budgets increased salaries for IT pros to address inflationary pressures faced by employees. Those are now being reviewed. Given those facts, Janco believes that median salaries for IT Pros in 2023 will be 3-4% salary above 2022 levels, not the 7% to 8% that was budgeted at the end of 2022.
“With this as a background, Janco has just revised downward its forecast for the growth of the IT Job Market in 2023 to just over 160,000 from 174,000 new jobs,” Janulaitis said. “That will be less growth than in 2021 and 2022 but still at high levels.”
December 2022
Even as some high-profile layoffs have lead the news over the past few months, the US added 223,000 jobs in December, including 17,600 positions at tech companies, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other research.
Technology job gains were recorded in four of five sector categories. It’s the 25th straight month of net employment growth in the tech industry, according to a report by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
The overall US unemployment rate dropped from 3.7% in November 2022 to 3.5% in December, according to BLS data. In the technology sector, the unemployment rate dropped from 2% in November to 1.8% in December, according to CompTIA.
“Another wave of positive tech employment data speaks to the many moving parts of a complex labor market,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Despite the layoffs there continues to be more employers hiring tech talent than shedding it.”
CompTIA’s analysis also showed that 30% of all tech jobs postings are for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, or in roles requiring emerging tech skills.
Within the tech sector, three occupation categories lead December hiring: IT services and custom software development (+7,200 jobs), other information services, including search engines (+6,600 jobs) and data processing, hosting and related services (+5,600 jobs).
CompTIA
The positive news was countered by a second consecutive month of lower employer job postings for future tech hiring. Future tech hiring is one metric CompTIA uses to predict how many job openings will be available over the next year. Future tech hiring declined for the second consecutive month, but still totaled more than 246,000 in December, down from 270,000 in November, 2022.
Also, the organization cautioned, recent layoff announcements by technology companies may not show up immediately in government reports, such as today’s BLS “employment situation” report, a CompTIA spokesperson said.
In spite of that, in the first quarter of 2023, the IT industry will lead all others in hirings, according to a new report from global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.
While companies are expected to hire fewer technology workers this quarter than the previous one (6% less) or even Q1, 2022 (14% less), ManpowerGroup’s survey of just under 39,000 employers in 41 countries revealed overall there will be a 23% increase in hiring.
ManpowerGroup
When considering how staffing levels will change during the first quarter, employers in 39 of 41 countries and territories surveyed anticipate a net positive hiring outlook, the report stated.
Organizations in the IT industry reported the most optimistic outlook for Q1, 2023 with an expected 35% increase in hiring; that was followed by Financials & Real Estate (28%), and Energy & Utilities (+26%).
Geographically, North American organizations expect to increase hiring by 31%; US organizations expect a 29% increase in hiring and Canadian organizations expect at 34% increase. Large organizations with more than 250 are more than twice as optimistic as small businesses (with less than 10 employees) to hire in the coming quarter with outlooks of 29% and 13%, respectively.
Wanting to hire is one thing and actually being able to find tech talent is another. Currently, there is a dearth of tech talent available.
Despite strong optimism to hire, the industry faces a talent shortage where 76% of IT industry employers report difficulty finding the hard and soft skills needed, according to ManpowerGroup’s survey.
“This recovery is unlike any we have ever seen [and] demand for skills is at record highs in many markets, and unemployment levels remain high while workforce participation stagnates,” the report said.
ManpowerGroup
Because of the lack of available talent, the lead time for filling an open IT position is now several months, according to a new report by business consultancy Janco Associates.
“If the position to be filled is a replacement for some who has left the enterprise, training time has to be factored in. This is just one of the issues faced by CIOs,” Janco stated in its 2023 IT Salary Survey, which included interviews more than 142 CIOs, CFOs, and HR professionals to identify key CIO staffing Issues
“With the limited labor supply of IT professionals, every hiring mistake is magnified,” Janco’s report stated.
Janco Associates
In Janco’s review of hiring failures based on survey responses, it found two factors that stood out over others. Interpersonal issues associated with these failures (29%) and poor corporate culture fit (28%) with the others. Those issues, Janco argued, can mostly be filtered out during the recruiting and interviewing process.
November 2022
For two straight years, the technology sector has added jobs every month.
In November, US tech companies added 14,400 workers, and tech jobs in all industry sectors grew by 137,000 positions, according to a new report from CompTIA
While the needle on overall US unemployment remained unchanged in November at 3.7%, for the technology sector it dropped to 2% from 2.2% in October, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures compiled by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
CompTIA
So far this year, tech industry jobs grew by 207,000 positions, according to BLS data.
“The hotter-than-anticipated tech jobs report confirms there are still many more employers hiring tech talent than shedding it,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer. “It’s certainly premature to dismiss concerns over the health of the economy, but this should be a reassuring sign for the tech workforce.”
The growth in the tech sector belies an economy beset by high inflation and what many still believe is an impending recession. And although inflation slowed to 7.7%, it is still well over the 2% target set by policymakers at the Federal Reserve Bank.
In November, nearly a dozen big name companies announced layoffs — some in the thousands, including Amazon, Cisco and HP. But experts believe the targeted layoffs, which have been ongoing over the past three months, are mostly a result of poor hiring strategies.
Due to a dearth of tech talent over the past two years, companies rushed to hire, bringing in a raft of tech workers with seven to 10 years’ experience and highly specialized skills.
On top of that, the companies tended to pay two to three times more than what they would have for someone with less experience but with the right education, aptitude, and attitude to be part of a sustainable workforce, according to Tony Lysak, CEO of The Software Institute, which offers IT consulting and education services.
“We need them, and can’t get them, so let’s pay more,” said Lysak, summing up how many companies have approached hiring during the past two years.
According to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates, the latest BLS data shows there are now just shy of four million jobs for IT professionals in the US. Janco sees this trend of IT jobs increases continuing but at a slower pace in the future. Layoffs will continue as companies seek to improve productivity levels.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive but not as broad in scope as in the first three quarters of this calendar year,” Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT. They are focusing on eliminating ‘non-essential’ managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers. The highest demand continues to be for programmers, blockchain processing, and security professionals. There still are over 200K unfilled jobs in the IT job market.”
IT salaries for existing IT staff and middle managers increased by just under 3% while new hires were paid 5% to 6% more than existing staff, according to Janco’s Mid Year 2022 IT Salary Survey. “In conversation with several CIOs, we observed that starting pay rates for new hires were in the 8% to 10% range a few months back, but this is not the case currently,” Janulaitis said.
November hiring by technology companies was broad-based across occupation categories, led by IT services and custom software development (+8,100). Employment growth also occurred in data processing, hosting and related services (+4,100), other information services, including search engines (+2,100), and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+1,900).
CompTIA
Employer job postings for future tech hiring fell back in November, but still totaled nearly 270,000. Openings for software developers and engineers accounted for about 28% of all tech jobs postings. Demand for IT support specialists, systems engineers, IT project managers, and network engineers was also solid.
While major tech hubs recorded the largest numbers of job postings for tech positions, ‘under the radar’ markets showed notable increases in employment opportunities, including Topeka, Kan.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Worcester, Mass.; and Riverside, Calif. Among industries, the professional, scientific, and technical services sector had the most tech job postings (41,188), followed by finance and insurance (35,132) and manufacturing (31,036).
CompTIA
CompTIA’s analysis also showed 30% of all tech jobs postings are for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, or in roles that require emerging tech skills.
Janco’s report also shows corporate executives are challenged by inflation and the economic downturn. Those executives are reluctant to hire replacement employees at salaries that are significantly higher than those who left as part of the Great Resignation. In their 2023 salary budgets for IT pros, “CIOs are trying to address the inflationary pressures faced by employees. We believe that starting salaries for IT Pros in 2023 will be 6% to 7% salary above existing levels,” Janulaitis said.
October 2022
Tech firms in October hired between 15,300 and 20,700 workers (depending on who’s doing the counting), marking roughly two straight years of hiring growth in the industry, according to two new employment reports.
So far this year, tech industry employment has increased by 193,900 jobs, 28% higher than the same period in 2021, according to a jobs report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
In contrast, technology job postings by tech and non-tech companies had been on a five-month downward slide until last month. Tech workers employed throughout the economy, regardless of industry, declined by 116,000 last month, according to CompTIA. CompTIA’s report is based on the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.
“The data is roughly in line with expectations,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Tech hiring activity remains steady, but there are undoubtedly concerns of a slowing economy.”
CompTIA
In October, the number of tech workers employed throughout all industries grew by 10,000 over the previous month, according to CompTIA.
Most of the issues affecting the economy are due to supply chain problems, according to Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, which also released its IT jobs report on Friday.
“If China opens up and supply chains will improve, that should lessen the recessionary pressures that are driving the tech giants to reduce staff,” Janulaitis said in a statement. “Also, the results of the election in the US will provide an opportunity to improve the economic climate.”
Tech job postings reflect the total of “help wanted” ads companies listed last month. There were 317,000 such postings in October, according to CompTIA. It was the first time since April 2022 that the number of job postings increased over the prior month.
CompTIA also noted that tech manufacturing employment is up 43% compared to the same period last year.
CompTIA
While the tech industry unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 2.2% in October from 2.1% in September, it remained well below the overall US unemployment rate, according to CompTIA’s report. The overall US unemployment rate also ticked up to 3.7% in October.
CompTIA’s jobs report differs somewhat from Janco Associates’s figures. Janco reported 15,300 new hires by tech companies in October; that compares to 13,700 job listings added by the tech industry the previous month.
There are now a total of 3.98 million jobs for IT professionals in the US, according to the BLS data analyzed by Janco.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the first three quarters of 2022,” Janulaitis said in a statement. “CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT. That means they are focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers.”
CompTIA
The highest demand in IT will be for programmers, blockchain processing, and security professionals, according to Janulaitis. Much of the hiring will be limited to filling positions that have been approved and are unfilled — not staff expansion.
Within the tech industry, the bulk of new hiring occurred in three sector categories, according to CompTIA:
IT services and custom software development (+8,800)
Other information services, including search engines (+6,800)
Computer and electronic products manufacturing (+5,400)
In Janco’s mid-year 2022 IT Salary Survey, it found IT salaries for existing IT staff and middle managers increased by just under 3%, while new hires were paid 5% to 6% more than existing staff. “In conversation with several CIOs, we observed that starting pay rates for new hires were in the 8%-10% range a few months back, but this is not the case currently,” Janulaitis said.
The disparity in pay between veteran IT workers and new hires is a point of contention and has likely led to some problems in worker motivation, according to Sinem Buber, lead economist with ZipRecruiter. When new employees are hired, they often come in with pay and benefits equal to or better than veteran employees. Even as companies have raised wages, it’s often across the board, ignoring seniority.
“So, the link between hard work and raises is broken,” Buber said.
CompTIA
Remote work hiring trends on the upswing
Remote work shows no signs of slowing down, according to CompTIA. Employer job postings for tech positions that specify remote work or work-from-home options continue to increase, with a year-to-date rate of 34% compared to 27% in 2021, and 22% in 2020.
Major tech hubs saw significant month-over-month increases in tech jobs postings, including Boston (+2,732), New York City (+1,459), San Francisco (+884) and San Jose (+864). The top industries for tech job postings were professional, scientific, and technical services (50,688); finance and insurance (35,500); and manufacturing (34,488), according to CompTIA.
Positions for software developers and engineers led the October job postings (85,796). “There is also strong demand for IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and network engineers,” CompTIA said.
September 2022: Janco analysis
IT job growth has continued each month for over a year, and in the last 12 months 202,800 jobs have been added, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor data, which was analyzed by IT consultancy Janco Associates.
At the same time, CIOs and CFOs have started to slow the rate at which they’re creating new IT jobs and hiring due to inflation and recession fears, according to Janco’s latest report.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the first nine months of 2022,” said M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates. “CIOs are still posturing to hire staff and expand technologies to address blockchain processing and security applications based on market conditions. However, most hiring will be limited to filling positions open due to attrition, not staff expansion.”
U.S. tech firms added workers for the 22nd consecutive month, and companies across the economy hired an estimated 84,000 new tech workers in September, according to the latest Tech Jobs Report from CompTIA.
Job postings for new hiring were down 12% from August, but still totaled just over 300,000. Positions in software development and engineering, tech support, tech project management, systems engineering, and network engineering were in highest demand, according to CompTIA.
CompTIA
About 30% of all postings were for positions in emerging technologies or in jobs that require emerging tech skills. Positions that offer remote work or work from home as an option surpassed 109,000.
Another new report by UK-based job search engine Hired showed that, unlike 2021, when companies were hiring faster than in years prior, the overall time to hire job seekers in 2022 slowed across the US, UK, and Canada. UK companies are now taking 68 days on average to fill open positions. US companies aren’t moving much faster, taking 60 days (up from 52 days in 2021). In Canada, it’s now 54 days. (Remote roles took 40 days to fill – that’s slower than in 2021, but the shortest time to hire overall, Hired said.
“Why? It’s not clear yet,” Hired said in its report. “Are jobseekers taking longer to evaluate opportunities? Or are employers moving candidates through the funnel more carefully? While this indicates an increase in the time to fill roles, it doesn’t equal an overall slowdown in tech hiring.”
Data from Hired indicates employers offering remote roles have a hiring edge over those requiring hybrid or on-site jobs. Since June 2021, candidates showed a preference for remote-only roles.
In January, 18% of active jobseekers indicated they only wanted remote roles. By May, preference for “only remote” roles climbed to 31% of all active jobseekers on Hired’s platform, and rose another percentage point to 32% in June. By June, 93% of candidates showed a preference for remote or hybrid jobs.
Janco Associates
Throughout the year, IT salaries in the US and Canada (except for junior candidates with less than two years of experience) saw significant growth. Mid-level US candidates with four to six years of experience saw the biggest jump from $146,000 to $154,000 between 2021 and 2022. Remote salaries for all candidates, except the most junior, also saw significant growth; on average they jumped by $7,000 to $8,000 from 2021 to 2022.
CompTIA
September 2022: CompTIA analysis
Tech companies added 25,500 workers last month, one of the strongest hiring months so far this year, according to new data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and industry analysts.
So far this year, employment in the tech industry has increased by 175,700 jobs, 46% ahead of 2021 — and 92% ahead of 2019, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce. (The total includes all employees —technical and non-technical — on the payrolls of tech companies.)
“Stability in tech hiring continues to be an over-arching theme this year,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “Despite all the economic noise and pockets of layoffs, aggregate tech hiring remains consistently positive.”
According to the latest BLS data, analyzed by IT consultancy Janco Associates, there are now 3.97 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US. For 24 months in a row, there has been an increase in the number of jobs added to the IT job market. Janco sees this trend continuing, according to its latest report released Friday.
CompTIA
The unemployment rate for tech occupations rose to 2.3% in August from 1.7% in July, according to CompTIA. There are likely two reasons for it jump: the overall US unemployment rate increased, as well, and some large tech firms announced layoffs, Herbert noted.
“The other component is we’ve seen a rebound in consumer confidence and worker confidence,” Herbert said. “So, it can also be attributed to tech workers feeling a renewed sense of confidence, and so they’ve quit their job and they’re looking for new opportunities. That was far more prominent earlier this year and last year with the ‘Great Resignation.’”
The number of workers quitting their jobs remained above 4 million in August, according to BLS data. Since June 2021, more than 4 million people have quit every month, according to BLS data, giving rise to the trend known as the Great Resignation. The trend reflects a deep dissatisfaction by many workers with their employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic pushed workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions.
Overall employer job postings for tech positions eased in August to just under 320,000 from 372,000 in July, with 31% of jobs posted last month for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT, or in roles that require emerging tech skills, such as data analytics and automation software.
“A lot of the technology is mature enough now that a lot of positions are implementing automation solutions, robotic process automation,” Herbert said. “Next-generation roles include cybersecurity, and broad categories of automation, so, marketing automation and HR automation.”
From January through August 2022, tech job postings where employers specify remote work or work from home as an option were up 56% over last year —and up 281% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to CompTIA.
“The one thing that jumped out at me, to no surprise, was the trend toward remote work that I think is now in a semi-permanent state,” Herbert said.
The increase in remote employment was highlighted by the leap in tech job postings in states such as Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, Herbert said.
CompTIA
Even as hiring was up, the number of job openings dropped, indicating the pace of new job vacancies could be slowing, according to Janco Associates. Its data is based on the latest BLS statistics.
There is some slowing in hiring as fears of a significant downturn or recession are on the horizon, Janco’s report stated.
“CIOs and CFOs now are more cautious than they were in the first quarter. CIOs do not have a clear understanding of how a downturn will impact their bottom line. Most still are hiring but at a slower pace,”Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis wrote in the report. “Some companies have stopped hiring and started laying off employees.”
“With all that, the IT job market remains tight with an average of 200,000 IT professionals jobs that are not filled due to a lack of qualified candidates,” Janulaitis continued. “The number of unfilled IT jobs has peaked from over 260,000 in April to 210,000 in July. That should still be enough of a buffer to keep hiring of IT pros on a positive track.”
Janco Associates
Janulaitis also said new IT hires are on average receiving salaries that are 5% to 6% above pay for existing positions — and in some cases as much as 10% higher; The higher starting pay is needed to attract the best IT candidates. That salary disparity, however, is driving dissatisfaction and an increase in attrition rate among existing employees, according to Janulaitis.
“The challenge CIOs face will be how to keep the balance between the existing budget, providing salary increases to existing employees that address inflation and higher commuting costs, and having sufficient resources available to achieve the enterprise’s technology and bottom line objectives,” Janulaitis said.
The BLS doesn’t track tech industry jobs directly. Instead, the agency uses the “information sector” as a proxy for tech employment because there are tech jobs in most industries, and therefore technology is not an industry in and of itself.
The nation’s unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.7% in August, with the number of unemployed rising by 344,000 to 6 million.
Overall, the US economy added 315,000 jobs in August, which was more than economists had predicted, but still far less than the 526,000 positions added in July – a record month for jobs.
Professional and business services added 68,000 jobs in August, according to the BLS. Within the industry, computer systems design and related services added 14,000 positions; management and technical consulting services grew by 13,000; and scientific research and development services increased by 6,000. Over the past 12 months, professional and business services has added 1.1 million jobs, according to the BLS.
“CIOs and CFOs now are more cautious than they were in the first quarter. CIOs do not have a clear understanding of how a downturn will impact their bottom line,” Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates said in a report last week. “Most still are hiring, but at a slower pace. Some companies have stopped hiring and started laying off employees.”
With all that, the IT job market remains tight, with an average of 200,000 IT professional jobs that are not filled due to a lack of qualified candidates, according to Janulaitis. If there is a major recession, many companies will choose not to fill those new open positions.
“That should be enough of a buffer to keep the hiring of IT pros on a positive track,” he said.
August 2022
Despite a number of sizeable layoffs at high-profile companies in recent months, the tech sector continued to lead all others in low unemployment rates in July, according to a new report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
Tech occupations across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 239,000 positions last month, according to an analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data by CompTIA.
Tech industry employment saw a net gain of 12,700 workers, the 20th consecutive month of growth. So far this year, the tech sector has gained 143,700 jobs, an increase of 55% year-over-year, according to CompTIA. The unemployment rate for tech jobs was just 1.7% in July (1.3% for women, 1.8% for men), roughly half the overall US unemployment rate of 3.5%.
Employer job postings for tech positions approached 484,000 in July, a slight decrease from the previous month but still at a near record level. Through the first seven months of 2022, US companies listed approximately 3.1 million jobs postings for tech positions, up 49% compared to 2021.
“The tech jobs market has repeatedly outperformed in the face of real and perceived economic weakness,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “The data confirms that for every layoff announcement there are other employers stepping in to take advantage of tech talent hiring opportunities.”
CompTIA
Meanwhile, since June 2021, more than 4 million people have quit their jobs every month, according to BLS data, part of a trend known as the Great Resignation. The trend reflects a deep dissatisfaction by many workers with their employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic has enabled workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions.
Some of the top reasons workers quit this year are unhappiness with how their employer treated them during the pandemic (19%), low pay or lack of benefits (17%), and a lack of work-life balance (13%), according to a survey by employment listing website Joblist.
The BLS doesn’t track tech industry jobs directly. Instead, the agency uses the “information sector” as a proxy for tech employment because there are tech jobs in most industries, and therefore technology is not an industry in of itself.
CompTIA
Within the tech sector, three occupation categories recorded job growth in July – other information services, including search engines (+6,800); data processing, hosting and related services (+4,100); and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+3,300). Hiring in the IT services and custom software development category was flat, while telecom-related occupations declined (-1,400), according to CompTIA.
About one in five tech job postings in July were for positions requiring two years or less of experience. About half specified three to five years of experience, while 13% sought candidates with nine or more years of experience, CompTIA said.
Many employers, even those in tech industries, are ending college degree requirements for many job openings. Instead, organizations are focusing on the skills, experience, and personality traits of job candidates. The sea change opens up tech jobs to a more diverse pool of candidates.
CompTIA
Software developers and engineers are the most in-demand positions employers are looking to fill — accounting for nearly 148,000 job postings last month. There is also a strong job market for IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and architects, and network engineers and architects. Positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills accounted for one-third of all postings in July.
Faced with a dearth of workforce talent, many tech companies and others are hiring through non-traditional approaches that include coding bootcamps, low-code training, and a focus on population areas outside the norm.
July 2022
Over the past three months, IT job openings for entry-level positions have declined significantly, according to a new report.
Job openings for entry-level tech workers declined from 29,500 in April to 24,000 in May and to 18,400 in June, according to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates.
Janco’s report, which was compiled from US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and survey data, said the downward trend is the result of several factors — the most critical of which is an increasing belief among C-level executives that we are already or soon will be in a recession.
In creating its May forecast for future IT hiring, Janco found that almost all 217 CIOs it surveyed are planning on:
Limiting the extension of existing contracts for contract workers and consultants beyond the 3rd quarter of the year.
Managing the full-time employee headcount to budgeted levels through the end of this year.
Not replacing departing employees who do not have critical IT skills and/or enterprise-specific operational knowledge.
“In our interviews, we have found that Wall Street has stopped hiring, and a number of job offers for recent IT college graduates have had offers that were extended pulled back,” Janco’s report stated. “The initial indicators from the monthly BLS data for June seem to be reinforcing those findings.”
Janco’s report noted that some organizations have already started the process of layoffs.
Netflix, PayPal, Getir, Klarna, Bolt, and Carvana instituted layoffs in May.
Coinbase will cut 1,100 jobs, about 18% of its global workforce.
Microsoft is slowing down its hiring “to better align its resources.”
Meta (Facebook) and Twitter have frozen hiring for some departments.
Gartner research shows that just 4% of US companies have started laying off employees, while 7% have frozen hiring and 15% have started to slow down hiring.
Janco Associates
Hiring is still robust for experienced IT pros —particularly for certain job titles, including security-related positions and in-demand technology, such as blockchain and e-commerce positions — but entry-level candidates are finding it more difficult to find new jobs, according to Janco.
Overall, the number of open jobs in the US at the end of May was 11.3 million, a drop from 11.7 million in April, according to the BLS’s May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report. Despite the drop in open requisitions, the U.S. added 390,000 jobs in May; The unemployment rate also held at 3.6%, and there were almost two job openings for each unemployed American. The number and rate of workers quitting their jobs remained almost unchanged at 4.3 million and 2.8%, respectively.
The impact of inflation and the potential of a significant downturn is not reflected in the preliminary budgets for 2023. Most CIOs and CFOs are trying to determine what they will do if that downturn occurs, Janco reported.
Janco also publishes a biannual salary survey in January and July. The just-published survey results showed that IT salaries were on the rise in the first six months of 2022. For the first time, median salaries for all IT pros in large enterprises exceeded $100,000.
Midsized companies were offering the greatest salary increases, which averaged north of 4% for IT middle managers and staff. IT executives saw an average 3.04% salary increase this year.
Large enterprises were more miserly, with staff receiving a 3.27% average increase and executives and middle managers earning a 3.47% and 1.20% average boost, respectively.
The unemployment rate for tech occupations fell to a near-record low in May, and employer job postings for tech positions passed 443,000, according to an analysis of the latest labor market data by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
“The already tight labor market just became even tighter as competition for tech talent reaches near-record levels,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “For any employer relying on the old hiring playbook, it’s time to rethink approaches to recruiting and retention.”
Employers throughout the US economy are stepping up their search for tech workers and tech companies continue to expand payrolls, according CompTIA. Specifically, tech firms added 75,200 workers through the first four months of 2022.
More than 190,000 new IT jobs will be created in 2022, according to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. The IT job market now has more than 3.85 million positions in the US, with about 130,000 of those positions unfilled, Janco’s report stated.
Some of the top tech jobs in terms of hiring and pay include software developer/engineer, IT project manager, IT support specialist, systems engineer/architect, and network engineer/architect, according to CompTIA’s jobs report.
Tech workers employed in the cloud space saw some of the greatest salary increases over the past year, according to a new salary survey from O’Reilly Media, an online IT training provider. According to the report, cloud-focused workers are the most sought-after tech talent as a growing number of organizations of all sizes utilize cloud tools and services.
The survey revealed that cloud professionals are paid an average yearly salary of $182,000. Report findings also show the impact of the great reshuffle within the tech sector, with 20% reporting they’ve already changed employers over the last year, and 25% of respondents planning to find new employment with better compensation, raising a question of whether the great reshuffle will continue.
Janco Associates
The average salary increase over the past year for cloud workers was 4.3%. The average salary for women, unfortunately, is 7% lower than the average salary for men, the survey also found.
The highest-paid job titles include directors ($235,000) and executives ($231,000), followed by architects, “leads,” and managers ($196,000, $190,000, and $188,000, respectively).
“During the pandemic, we witnessed millions of workers resign from companies in an effort to reconfigure their careers and take deliberate steps toward new job opportunities with higher wages and better alignment between their work and life goals,” said O’Reilly President Laura Baldwin. “With these workers in such demand, we anticipate the great tech exodus to continue unless employers step up with competitive pay, substantial benefits, remote work flexibility, and on-the-job learning and development.”
June 2022
Technology companies added workers for the 18th consecutive month and employer job postings for tech occupations reached a new high in May, according to an analysis of the latest employment data by a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.
Technology industry level companies added 22,800 net new workers in May. Through the first five months of 2022 employment increased by 106,700 positions and is 69% ahead of the same period versus 2021, according to an analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report by industry association CompTIA.
Employer hiring activity as measured by job postings for tech positions totaled 623,627 for the month of May and nearly 2.2 million year-to-date, which represents a 52% increase versus the same period of the previous year.
“The data speaks to the broad-based nature of the tech workforce,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “It also speaks to the many factors affecting employment and situations where sectors or companies easing up on hiring may be offset by sectors or companies increasing hiring.”
The unemployment rate for the IT sector did edge up slightly in May to 2.1% from 2.0% the previous month . The unemployment rate for tech occupations, however, remained remarkably low compared to the overall national unemployment rate of 3.6%.
“In an analysis of the latest BLS data we have found the number of jobs created for IT professionals continues to grow. However, there are some clouds for IT pros’ job prospects six to twelve months in the future.” said M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. “The primary driver is inflation and high energy costs which is causing concerns that the economy will slow later in the year and potentially have an extended recession in 2023.”
Janco Associates, which did its own analysis of the BLS jobs report, found over the past year more than 20,000 new IT positions were added each month. That surge has begun to cool a bit with 17,000 new IT jobs created in May.
Janco Associates
All signs point to that growth continuing but at a slower rate of 13,000 to 14,000 new jobs added per month through out the rest of the year. By the end of 2022, Janco forecasted that 191,000 new IT Jobs will be added.
Currently, there are more than 3.9 million unfilled IT job positions in the US, according to Janco.
“That is driven by the fact that qualified candidates can not be found,” Janulaitis said. “The first sign that the growth of the IT job market is slowing will be the reduction in that number as companies will just pull back on trying to recruit those unfilled positions.”
So far in 2022, the IT job market has grown by 93,400 jobs, which is 43,000 more than the for the same period in 2021. If there is a downturn, as some predict, one of the reactions by CEOs will be to implement hiring freezes that will result in a decrease in the growth of the IT job market, according to Janulaitis.
CompTIA
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive but not as broad in scope as last year. CIOs are still posturing to hire more staff and expand technologies to address blockchain processing and security applications based on market conditions,” Janulaitis said. “However recent events, increased energy cost, and the specter of high inflation will harm IT job market growth.”
Positions for software developers and engineers (204,084) accounted for nearly a third of all employer tech job postings in May, an increase of more than 77,000 from April, according to CompTIA. IT project managers, IT support specialists, systems engineers and architects and network engineers and architects also saw market increase in hiring.
One-third of all job postings were for positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills.
Industries that saw some of the hottest hiring trends includeded scientific and technical services, finance and insurance, manufacturing, information, retail trade, health care and social assistance, public administration and educational services. The search for tech talent was widely dispersed across geographies, as well. Four metro areas (New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles and Washington) recorded tech jobs postings totals that surpassed 31,000 positions.
Hiring in the IT services and custom software development category led May’s tech sector job growth with more than 13,100 new positions. Hiring in data processing, hosting and related services, computer and electronic products manufacturing and other information services, including search engines also increased. Conversely, jobs in telecommunications declined, according to CompTIA’s report.
April 2022
The IT job market size grew by 17,000 jobs in April, according to new data from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates.
Over the past three months, 43,200 Jobs have been added to IT Job Market, a pace of expansion exceeds 2021, the firm stated in its latest research post.
In 2021, 213,100 jobs were added to the IT Job Market. That not only replaced the jobs lost during the pandemic, but it also expanded the growth to a level that exceeded the pre-pandemic levels. (Janco bases its information on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics — the BLS.)
“In interviews with both CIOs and HR professionals, Janco has found that hiring IT professionals is at a record high level. This, even with inflation and the specter of a possible economic downturn,” Janco stated. “All signs point to that growth continuing.”
While all IT jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered, the hiring of IT professionals is now being hindered by a lack of qualified individuals, according to the latest statistics.
The April monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association showed the tech industry added 12,300 jobs from February to March, 2022. Software developers (3,613) and systems engineers/architects (3,126) led the pack in terms of new positions available.
Software developers and engineers are far and away the most sought-after positions companies need to fill, with more than 115,000 job postings across the US, according to CompTIA. IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and architects, and network engineers and architects are also in high demand.
“By all accounts this was an exceptionally strong start to the year for tech employment,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The arms race in recruiting and retaining tech talent undoubtedly challenges employers in direct and indirect ways.”
The unemployment rate for tech occupations fell to a near-record low, as tech firms added workers for the 16th consecutive month and employer job postings for tech positions surpassed 400,000 in March, according to an analysis of the latest labor market data by CompTIA.
“The already tight labor market just became even tighter as competition for tech talent reaches near-record levels,” Herbert said in a statement. “For any employer relying on the old hiring playbook, it’s time to rethink approaches to recruiting and retention.”
IT jobs across the US increased by 19,000 in March. The unemployment rate for tech occupations is 1.3%, its lowest level since June 2019 and about one-third the current national unemployment rate (3.6%).
Janco is forecasting more than 138,000 new IT jobs will be created in 2022. The IT job market now has more than 3.85 million positions in the US. As of December 2021, Janco reported 3.72 million IT positions in the US.
“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the last quarter of 2021,” Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “CIOs are still posturing to hire more staff and expand technologies to address blockchain processing and security applications based on market conditions. However recent events, increased energy cost, and the specter of high inflation will harm IT job market growth.”
Janco
IT job growth in recent years.
According to the BLS, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 13% from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations. IT is projected to add about 667,600 new jobs, with demand for those workers stemming from a greater emphasis on cloud computing, the collection and storage of big data, and information security, according to the BLS.
The median annual wage for computer and information technology occupations was $94,729 in January 2021, which was higher than the median annual wage for all occupations ($45,760). In January 2022, the median wage for IT positions had increased to $96,667 – an uptick of about 2.05%.
Conversely, new IT hires in the last quarter of 2021 were paid 5% to 6% more than existing staff, according to Janco.
“In conversation with several CIOs, we learned that increases for new hires in the 9% to 12% range were not uncommon,” Janulaitis said. “ It is not uncommon for IT pros who are highly skilled and experienced (over 10 years) to be offered salaries at $125,000 and above. Salary disparity is a driver of dissatisfaction and an increase in attrition rate among existing employees.”
December 2021
Hiring of IT professionals is at record pace with 197,000 more IT jobs so far this year than at the same time last year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
There has been growth in the IT job market each of the past eight months, according to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates.
“Information-Technology leaders say they are boosting compensation packages and flexible work options to widen the pool of prospective job candidates, as demand surges for tech talent,” M. Victor Janulaitis, Janco’s CEO, stated on the company’s website.
To entice employees and retain existing tech staff, CIOs are offering flexible work options, such as a combination of in-office and remote work. The median salary for IT professionals is expected to grow to between $96,000 and $97,000, up from just over $94,600 in January and $95,600 in June, Janulaitis wrote.
“Most CIOs have not recruited at this rate before. Janco attributes the hiring push of some CIOs to meet their company’s goals to recruit talent related to security, compliance and cloud computing, Those IT jobs are difficult ones to fill,” he said.
In 2019, 90,200 new IT jobs were created. As a result of the global pandemic. By contrast, 33,200 were lost in 2020. In 2021, almost 150,000 jobs were added to the IT job market.
All job markets included, nearly 100 million working-age people were excluded from the labor force in November 2021, according to Janco Associates, which is based on BLS data. Most, of course, are still in school, retired ill or disabled and unable to work, according to the BLS data. But, those excluded from the labor force also include 471,000 “discouraged workers,” which represents an increase from 460,000 last month. Among the reasons cited for not re-joining the workforce were the continued impact of vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and new virus variants.
Roughly 34.4 million people have quit their jobs this year as they reevaluate their work lives, according to job-search company Joblist. A survey of 26,000 employees recently published by Joblist showed nearly three-quarters of respondents said they were actively thinking about quitting. And, roughly 34.4 million people have quit their jobs this year during 2021 as they reevaluate their work lives.
About 46% of the remaining workforce is considering leaving work because they’re not being allowed to work remotely, according to the Work Trend Index study by Microsoft Corp.
“There are 94.438 million who just do not want work at all. That is a increase of almost 612,000 individuals from the same month last year,” according to Janco Associates’s website.
Baby boomers retiring is another factor in the continued fall in the Labor Participation rate.
Overall, though, the IT job market in the U.S. has added an average of about 13,000 positions during each month of 2021, up from a typical monthly average of between 5,000 and 8,000 jobs.
Job growth in the US IT industry had slowed and took a dip in October, adding just 4,800 positions, according to the BLS data that were included in the figures from Janco Associates. That was down from 8,900 positions added in the revised September figures.
In October, the overall growth in IT positions was even as the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 continued to hinder overall job growth, mainly due to slowdowns in the restaurant, entertainment, and service sectors.
The IT industry’s bigger challenge is finding qualified candidates for those IT jobs, Janulaitis said in a statement at the time. And the challenge won’t end soon, he said:
From data that we have reviewed, shutdowns resulted in fewer computer science candidates graduating from universities and trade schools. Those in the pipeline for those degrees were reduced as well. One of the drivers of that trend was that the closing of borders limited the number of foreign nationals who could qualify for that training and education.
Many of the new positions that CIOs are trying to fill are in new technologies. There is a shortfall of individuals who have the training and skills necessary. There are open positions that cannot be filled. … At the same, time attrition rates are on the rise in many IT organizations.
US IT job growth was stronger earlier in the year, before the delta variant and the talent shortage: August saw a surge of 25,400 new jobs on the heels of about 18,500 in June and 9,900 in July (all are revised figures), reflecting continuing business recovery from the pandemic. In fact, IT job growth has occurred for 15 consecutive months, though it was uneven through May. I has averaged 13,000 new jobs each month so far in 2021.
The IT job situation in the US continues to look very much like the pre-pandemic state: more positions than candidates. In fact, businesses would have filled more IT positions in September had they found enough qualified candidates, Janulaitis said. Finding web developers and cybersecurity and compliance pros remains the toughest task for CIOs, he said — and is causing HR to focus more on IT staff retention.
That talent shortage has put even greater pressure on businesses to increase salaries, Janulaitis said — and US IT salaries had already been trending up in 2021.
Janco still expects 2021 to have greater IT job growth — there were 189,000 new positions in 2021 as of Oct. 31, with two more months of hiring left in the year — than in any previous year, more than making up for jobs lost due to the pandemic. The last high was 2015, when 112,500 new positions were created. In 2018, 104,600 new IT positions were added; in 2019, the increase was 90,200; and in 2020, the industry lost 33,200 positions.
There are now 3.72 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association also showed slower hiring growth in October. CompTIA calculated that there were 8,300 new US tech-sector jobs last month, down from September’s 18,700, August’s 26,800, July’s 10,700, and June’s 10,500 jobs. The US tech sector’s job numbers remain above their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions, nudging just past 4.81 million in October 2021, according to CompTIA data.
CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical; Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
CompTIA calculated the estimated unemployment rate for the tech sector at 2.1% in October, down from 2.2% in September but up from 1.5% in August and July. The current tech unemployment rate is within range of its 2018-19 lows, where it ranged from 1.2% to 2.4%. The national unemployment rate in October was 4.6%, down from 4.8% in September, according to the BLS.
October 2021
The job growth in the US IT industry slowed in September, adding 16,700 positions, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reported in the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. That’s down from 22,000 positions added in the revised August figures.
Overall growth in IT positions comes even as the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 continued to hinder overall job growth, mainly due to slowdowns in the restaurant, entertainment, and service sectors.
That August surge followed job growth of about 18,500 in June and 10,100 in July (both are revised figures), reflecting continuing business recovery from the pandemic in the US. In fact, IT job growth has occurred every month this year, though it was uneven through May, averaging 13,000 new jobs each month so far in 2021.
The IT job situation in the US continues to look very much like the pre-pandemic state: more positions than candidates. In fact, businesses would have filled more IT positions in September had they found enough qualified candidates for them, Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. Finding web developers and cybersecurity and compliance pros remains the toughest task for CIOs, he said — and is causing HR to focus more on IT staff retention.
That talent shortage has put even greater pressure on businesses to increase salaries, Janulaitis said — and US IT salaries had already been trending up in 2021.
Janco expects 2021 to have greater IT job growth — 145,000 to 152,000 new positions — than in any year since 2015, when 112,500 new positions were created. In 2018, 104,600 new IT positions were added; in 2019, the increase was 90,200; and in 2020, the industry lost 33,200 positions.
There are now 3.72 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association also showed slower growth in September hiring. CompTIA calculated that there were 18,700 new US tech-sector jobs last month, down from August’s 26,800, but still a jump over both July’s gain of 10,700 and June’s gain of 10,500 jobs. The US tech sector’s job numbers remain above their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions, reaching 4.81 million in September 2021, according to CompTIA data.
CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
CompTIA calculated the estimated unemployment rate for the tech sector at 2.2% in September, up from 1.5% in August and July, and the same as in June. The current tech unemployment rate is within range of its 2018-19 lows, where it ranged from 1.2% to 2.4%. The national unemployment rate in September was 4.8%, according to the BLS.
September 2021
The job growth in the US IT industry accelerated in August, adding 25,400 positions, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reported in the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. That growth in IT positions comes even as the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 slowed overall job growth, mainly due to slowdowns in the restaurant and entertainment sectors.
The August surge follows job growth of about 18,500 in June and 10,100 in July (both are revised figures), reflecting continuing business recovery from the pandemic in the US. In fact, IT job growth has occurred every month this year, though it was uneven through May.
The IT job situation in the US continues to look very much like the pre-pandemic state: more positions than candidates. In fact, businesses would have filled more IT positions in August had they found enough qualified candidates for them, Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. Finding web developers and cybersecurity and compliance pros remains the toughest task for CIOs, he said — and is causing HR to focus more on IT staff retention.
That talent shortage has put even greater pressure on businesses to increase salaries, Janulaitis said — and US IT salaries had already been trending up in 2021.
Janco expects 2021 to have greater IT job growth — 132,000 to 152,000 new positions — than in any year since 2015, when 112,500 new positions were created. In 2018, 104,600 new IT positions were added; in 2019, the increase was 90,200; and in 2020, the industry lost 33,200 positions.
There are now 3.7 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association also showed a surge in August hiring. CompTIA calculated that there were 26,800 new US tech-sector jobs last month, a jump over both July’s gain of 10,700 and June’s gain of 10,500 jobs. The US tech sector’s job numbers have now exceeded their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions, reaching 4.79 million in August 2021, according to CompTIA data.
CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
CompTIA calculated the estimated unemployment rate for the tech sector at 1.5% in August, the same as in July and down from 2.2% in June. The current tech unemployment rate is approaching its 2018-19 lows, where it ranged from 1.2% to 2.4%. The national unemployment rate in August was 5.2%, according to the BLS.
August 2021
The job growth in the US IT industry continued at a steady pace in July, adding 11,200 positions, according to figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported in the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. June saw an increase of 11,400, reflecting continuing business recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. In fact, IT job growth has occurred every month this year, though it was uneven in the first five months of the year.
Today, the jobs situation looks very much like the pre-pandemic state: more positions than candidates. “With reopening, more organizations are actively recruiting,” Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “In full-employment states, there are many positions for IT pros that remain unfilled due to the lack of qualified candidates.”
That’s put pressure on businesses to increase salaries.
Janco expects 2021 to have greater IT job growth — 108,000 new positions — than in any year since 2015, when 112,500 new positions were created. The year 2018 saw 104,600 new IT positions; 2019 saw 90,200; and 2020 saw a loss of 33,200 positions.
There are nearly 3.7 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association calculated that there were 10,700 new US tech sector jobs in July, similar to June’s gain of 10,500 jobs and following gains the entire year. The US tech sector’s job numbers have now essentially matched their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions, according to the CompTIA data.
CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
CompTIA calculated the estimated unemployment rate for the tech sector as 1.5% in July, down from 2.2% in June. The current tech unemployment rate is approaching its 2018-19 lows, where it ranged from 1.2% to 2.4%. The national unemployment rate in July was 5.4%, according to the BLS.
The BLS has adjusted its figures on job growth for all of 2021, bringing the total hires to 69,000 IT staffers through June. The agency had previously reported 47,700 jobs through May, a figure now revised upward to 57,100. June saw an additional 11,900 hires, and it’s possible the BLS could revise its figures again in future reports.
Janco also confirmed previously reported preliminary data on US IT salaries from its own surveys. As the jobs market remains steady in its post-COVID recovery, IT salaries have started to increase as organizations struggle to fill some positions.
That salary survey shows that IT execs in large enterprises are getting the largest salary boosts, with a median increase of 3.2%. Those in midsize enterprises are seeing median rises of 1.2%. For lower-level positions, IT pros do better at midsize enterprises than at large ones: Middle managers at large enterprises are seeing 0.6% boosts, while those at medium-sized firms are seeing 1.3% increases.
IT staffers are seeing the least improvement — an ongoing phenomemon across all company sizes, in which IT execs continue to be rewarded more. Staffers at large enterprises are realizing 0.4% gains; those at midsize enterprises are seeing 0.7% gains.
At its worst, more than 100,000 IT jobs were lost during the depths of the pandemic in spring 2020, though two-thirds of those came back as the year progressed. Still, 2020 ended with 33,200 fewer IT jobs in the US compared to 2019. With the 69,000 estimated job gains so far in 2021, the US IT job market at the end of June is at 16,700 ahead of the 2020 peak in February — and nearly 140,000 jobs ahead of the 2020 nadir in July.
There are more than 3.6 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association calculated that there were 10,500 new US tech sector jobs in June, following gains in each previous month of 2021. The US tech sector’s job numbers have now essentially matched their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions, according to the CompTIA data.
CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
CompTIA’s data does show a softening of hiring, with small reductions in job postings in several roles, such as for software developers and systems analysts, as well as in several cities, including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco. By contrast, postings grew for positions in San Jose, Calif. The data show more variability, indicating perhaps some settling of hiring activities.
CompTIA calculated the estimated unemployment rate for the tech sector as 2.2% in June, down from 2.4% in May. The current tech unemployment rate is approaching its 2018-19 lows, where it ranged from 1.2% to 2.4%.
June 2021
As the US IT jobs market remains steady in its post-COVID recovery, salaries have started to increase as organizations struggle to fill some positions. That’s based on a survey to be releasd June 15 by IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. Janco provided Computerworld a preview of that survey.
That salary survey shows that IT executives in large enterprises are getting the largest salary boosts, with a median rise of 3.2%. IT execs in midsize enterprises are seeing median rises of 1.2%. For lower-level positions, IT pros do better at midsize enterprises than at large ones: Middle managers at large enterprises are seeing 0.6% boosts, while those at midsize enterprises are seeing 1.3% rises.
IT staffers are seeing the least improvement — an ongoing phenomemon across all company sizes, in which IT execs continue to be rewarded more — with those at large enterprises registering 0.4% gains and those at midsize enterprises seeing 0.7% gains.
The US IT employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been very volatile in 2021, with the agency reducing its prior-month estimates several times this year. The agency, for example, reduced its 2021 job gain count by 14,100 from earlier estimates. The BLS data shows a May rise in IT hires of 7,700, and — even with the downward BLS revisions for prior months — the net growth for US IT jobs this year stands at about 47,700, according to Janco’s analysis.
At its worst, more than 100,000 IT jobs were lost during the depths of the pandemic in spring 2020, though two-thirds of those came back as the year progressed. Still, 2020 ended with 33,200 fewer IT jobs in the US compared to 2019. With the 47,700 estimated job gains so far in 2021, the US IT job market at the end of May is at 13,500 more than the 2020 peak in February — and nearly 150,000 ahead of the 2020 nadir in July.
There are more than 3.6 million IT pro jobs in the US, Janco estimates.
The monthly tech jobs report released by the CompTIA industry association calculated that there were 10,500 new US tech sector jobs in May, following gains in each previous month of 2021. CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, with roughly 44% being technical and 56% being nontechnical, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
Still, the US tech sector’s job numbers have not yet matched their March 2020 peak of 4.76 million positions. As of last month, there were 4.74 million, a number that continues to grow.
CompTIA’s unemploment rate estimate for the tech sector stood at 2.4% in May, within its range over the last few months — versus 5.8% in May for the national rate for all industries. For previous months, CompTIA calculated a 2.5% tech unemployment rate in April, 1.9% in March, and 2.4% in February. The rise in the overall tech unemployment rate may reflect a loss of sales jobs in the tech sector, even as technologist jobs grew.
CompTIA also saw the number of tech-related job listings jump in May, to about 365,000 versus the 307,000 estimated for April. Job postings have grown by about 158,000 so far in 2021.
Software developers constituted the largest pool of listed openings at 112,200, with listings for IT support specialists coming in second at 28,200 and for system engineers and architects third at 27,200 — all represent significant increases from May.
The top sector for tech job postings in May was manufacturing, which had 70,970 positions open. Professional and technical services followed at 58,783, then finance and insurance at 31,054, and information services at 20,244.
The Washington, D.C. metro area had the most job postings, 21,611, followed by the New York metro area with 20,481; the Dallas metro area with 14,796; the Los Angeles metro area at 12,825; and the Atlanta metro area at 12,825. The San Francisco metro came in sixth at 11,918, just 117 more postings than in April. And the adjacent San Jose metro came in ninth at 8,746.
The Chicago metro had the greatest decline in postings, with 10,526 postings — down 1,025 from April. On the West Coast, slight declines in job postings were recorded in the Los Angeles area (205 fewer), the Seattle area (51 fewer, for 80,080 in May), and the San Jose metro area (466 fewer, wiping out the 117 gain in the adjacent San Francisco metro).
May 2021
Nearly all the US IT jobs lost in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic have come back, with IT employment enjoying eight straight months of growth. Of course, some of the replacement jobs were in IT specialties other than the jobs lost, as there has been a steady trend of declining data center and telecommunications positions in favor of software development jobs; that was true, even before the pandemic.
At its worst, more than 100,000 IT jobs were lost during the depths of the pandemic in spring 2020, though two-thirds of those came back as the year progressed. Still, 2020 ended with 33,200 fewer IT jobs in the US compared to 2019.
So far in 2021, 30,400 IT jobs have been added, nearly erasing the 2020 net losses.
And IT jobs in 2021 are set to continue to grow, according to the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. It expects another 70,000 IT jobs to be available this year. Janco’s numbers come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly reports.
When adjusted for seasonality, March saw 6,500 new IT jobs, February saw 9,400, and January saw 14,400. The January and February numbers were revised up significantly from BLS’s original estimate of 8,500 and 6,000, respectively.
The Janco figures jibe with a report released by the CompTIA industry association. It calculated that there were 9,700 new US tech sector jobs in March, following a gain of 7,700 in February and 19,500 in January. CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
Using a much broader definition of IT, including sales positions, CompTIA estimated that 50,000 IT-related jobs were added in March across all industries, following a 178,000-job gain in in February and a 78,000-job gain in January. That reflects an unemployment rate of 1.9%, down from 2.4% in February 2021 and the lowest rate since August 2019.
Nationally, for all jobs, the US unemployment rate fell from 6.2% in February to 6.1% in March, according to the BLS. But the national unemployment rate is closer to 9% if those who have given up looking are included, estimates Oxford Economics; the BLS reports the level of these discouraged workers has remained steady.
CompTIA also saw the number of IT-related job listings grow by about 30,000 in March, passing 307,000. That follows a rise of 44,300 listings in February and 26,000 in January.
Software developers constituted the largest pool of listed openings at 93,000, with listings for IT support specialists coming in second at 25,800 and for system engineeris and architects third at 23,200.
April 2021
Nearly all the US IT jobs lost in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic have come back, with IT employment enjoying eight straight months of growth. Of course, some of the replacement jobs were in IT specialties other than the jobs lost, as there has been a steady trend of declining data center and telecommunications positions in favor of software development jobs; that was true, even before the pandemic.
At its worst, more than 100,000 IT jobs were lost during the depths of the pandemic in spring 2020, though two-thirds of those came back as the year progressed. Still, 2020 ended with 33,200 fewer IT jobs in the US compared to 2019.
So far in 2021, 30,400 IT jobs have been added, nearly erasing the 2020 net losses.
And IT jobs in 2021 are set to continue to grow, according to the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. It expects another 70,000 IT jobs to be available this year. Janco’s numbers come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly reports.
When adjusted for seasonality, March saw 6,500 new IT jobs, February saw 9,400, and January saw 14,400. The January and February numbers were revised up significantly from BLS’s original estimate of 8,500 and 6,000, respectively.
The Janco figures jibe with a report released by the CompTIA industry association. It calculated that there were 9,700 new US tech sector jobs in March, following a gain of 7,700 in February and 19,500 in January. CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
Using a much broader definition of IT, including sales positions, CompTIA estimated that 50,000 IT-related jobs were added in March across all industries, following a 178,000-job gain in in February and a 78,000-job gain in January. That reflects an unemployment rate of 1.9%, down from 2.4% in February 2021 and the lowest rate since August 2019.
Nationally, for all jobs, the US unemployment rate fell from 6.2% in February to 6.1% in March, according to the BLS. But the national unemployment rate is closer to 9% if those who have given up looking are included, estimates Oxford Economics; the BLS reports the level of these discouraged workers has remained steady.
CompTIA also saw the number of IT-related job listings grow by about 30,000 in March, passing 307,000. That follows a rise of 44,300 listings in February and 26,000 in January.
Software developers constituted the largest pool of listed openings at 93,000, with listings for IT support specialists coming in second at 25,800 and for system engineeris and architects third at 23,200.
March 2021
As the overall US economy showed continued glimpses of recovery in February, the IT job market continued the rebound that began in the fall, though at a slower pace than in January.
Growth last month was 13,700, according to the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. January saw 8,600 new IT jobs. When adjusted for seasonality, February saw 6,000 new IT jobs, and January saw 10,900, down dramatically from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS’) original estimate of 18,200.
Still, the overall trend for IT — whose US jobs number 3.6 million — remains on an upward trajectory.
The Janco figures jibe with a report released by the CompTIA industry association. It calculated that there were 7,700 new US tech sector jobs in February, following a gain of 19,500 in January. CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
Using a much broader definition of IT, including sales positions, CompTIA estimated that 178,000 IT-related jobs were added in February across all industries, following a 78,000-job gain in January. That reflects an unemployment rate of 2.4%, down from 3.0% in December 2020.
Nationally, for all jobs, the US unemployment rate fell from an adjusted 6.3% in January to 6.2% in February, according to the BLS. But the national unemployment rate is closer to 9% if those who have given up looking are included, estimates Oxford Economics; the BLS reports the level of these discouraged workers has remained steady.
CompTIA also saw the number of IT-related job listings grow by about 44,300 in February, passing 277,000. That follows a rise of 26,000 listings in January. Software developers constituted the largest pool of listed openings at 88,000, with listings for systems engineers and architects coming in second at 22,700. But Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis expects that over the next several years, coders will find jobs scarcer as low-code development gains traction, even as demand for software developers overall increases.
February 2021
Even as the overall US economy struggled in January — adding just 6,000 private sector jobs and 49,000 jobs overall — the seasonally adjusted IT job growth last month was 18,200, according to the latest figures from IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. The past two months saw 55,000 new IT jobs, revised up from the 18,000 total reported a month earlier, based on revisions from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Still, compared to January 2020, US IT jobs have decreased by 35,800, a loss of about 1%. Last spring, more than 100,000 IT jobs were lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, representing about 3% of the IT workforce.
The Janco figures jibe with a report released by the CompTIA industry association. It calculated that there were 19,500 new US tech sector jobs in January. CompTIA calculates both technical and nontechnical positions at tech vendors, whereas Janco looks at IT positions, including software developers, in all industries.
Using a much broader definition of IT, including sales positions, CompTIA estimated that 78,000 IT-related jobs were added in January across all industry sectors. That reflects an unemployment rate of 2.4%, down from 3.0% in December 2020. Nationally, for all jobs, the US unemployment rate fell to 6.3% from 6.7%. But the national unemployment rate is closer to 9% if those who have given up looking are included, estimates Oxford Economics.
CompTIA also saw the number of IT-related job listings grow by about 26,000 in January, passing 232,000.
Over the coming decade, Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis expects 11% growth in US IT jobs. “Most of the growth in the IT job market will be with software developers, quality assurance, and testers,” he said in a statement. “This will be driven by [work from home] as it is will be embraced by more enterprises in normal operations and internet-centric applications are developed and deployed.
“The projected growth for that sector alone will be almost 18%,” he said.
January 2021
For the first time since the dot-com bust of 2000-2002, US IT salaries were flat in 2020, rising a negligible 0.08% to an average of $94,609 per year, according to the most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates. The year also ended with 55,900 fewer jobs than the US IT industry had on Jan. 1, 2020 — a drop of 1.5% for the year. (Last week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] revised its figures for 2020, resulting in a revised drop of 55,900 versus the 81,100 reported previously.)
A separate survey by the industry association CompTIA, using BLS data, showed that the broad US tech industry showed job growth of 391,000 positions (22,000 of which were at tech vendors) in December 2020 — even as the US as a whole lost 140,000 jobs. About 44% of those tech sector jobs are for positions such as IT staff, software developers, and IT project managers; the rest are support positions such as sales, marketing, and management.
Janco’s survey focuses specifically on IT jobs, mainly people in a CIO’s organization, whereas the CompTIA survey looks at the entire tech sector.
The December growth in tech and IT jobs still left the broader tech sector below December 2019’s level, with 4.68 million jobs in December 2020, down from 4.73 million a year earlier. CompTIA’s survey shows a steady increase in tech jobs since July 2020, after a steep drop that began in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Janco survey showed that IT middle managers lost the most pay ground in 2020, with an average 0.08% salary reduction at large enterprises and 0.07% reduction at mid-sized enterprises. IT staff saw 0.03% average salary increases in large enterprises and 0.04% in medium enterprises. Executives did the best, of course: their salaries were up 0.59% in large enterprises and up 0.35% in medium ones.
April and May were the worst months for US IT jobs in 2020, Janco’s data shows. In those months, 116,000 IT pros lost their jobs due to COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. Hiring partially recovered in later months, but the total of 3.58 million US IT jobs in 2020 remained below 2019’s 3.64 million (but slightly above 2018’s 3.54 million).
Janco notes that IT consulting and contract positions meant to augment IT staff were all but eliminated in 2020 and hiring growth stalled in the second wave of lockdowns that began in the fall as COVID-19 infections resurged. Those infection rates continue to grow in early 2021; Janco’s interviews with 101 US CIOs reveal that they don’t expect IT job or salary growth in 2021.
Still, IT was fortunate in 2020 compared to many other industries. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated many industries, eliminating jobs at an unprecedented scale in the travel, hospitality, entertainment, and events businesses. Retailers with physical stores faced massive job losses as well, though manufacturing has largely bounced back. The US overall had 9.4% fewer jobs as of June 30 (the latest data available) compared to 2019, the BLS reported. The tech unemployment rate has been roghly half that of the national rate throughout the pandemic, ending at 3% in December 2020 versus 6.7% for the economy as a whole, CompTIA reported.
Despite those massive losses in multiple industries, the average US salary rose 2.6% in 2020, according to the PayScale salary survey, which was last updated on Oct. 12. The latest data from the BLS, which covers the first half of 2020, showed an 8.6% average salary increase from a year earlier. Some of the salary increases reflect higher pay for grocery workers, delivery drivers, and warehouse workers whose jobs became more critical during the lockdowns and who were at greater risk of contracting the virus in their work.
Of course, people who lost their jobs aren’t included in salary surveys, so those figures reflect the pay of the still-employed.
CompTIA reports that software developers had the largest employment gains (4,700 hires) in December, triple that of the next-largest group, systems analysts (1,400 hires).
December 2020
After three months of rebound, the US IT job market reversed course in November, shedding 8,300 jobs. That loss follows a 9,300-job gain in October, a 13,500 gain in September, and a 4,500 gain in August. For the year, the net loss of US IT jobs now stands at 81,100, still down from a peak high of 102,900 job losses this year as of August, according to the most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates.
In November, “the major loss of jobs for IT professions was in [small businesses] and consulting firms that service them; 7.5 million small to mid-size business are disproportionately impacted by shutdowns,” said Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis. He said many of these closures escape notice because they shut down before their debt levels require going through bankruptcy court.
Large companies have also shuttered or retrenched, he said.
Three quarters of the lost IT jobs in the US are concentrated in two segments, he said. One is data processing, hosting, and related services, the other is computer systems design and related services.
“Hiring of IT professionals has all but stopped due to the uncertainty about the recovery,” Janulaitis said. And the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic this fall, and the likelihood that vaccinations will be largely complete only in summer 2021, suggests that IT jobs will be at risk for the foreseeable future, he said, as many businesses continue to shrink and many others put off anchoring until there’s more economic certainty.
November 2020
IT jobs lost at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns continue to recover slowly, with an additional 12,700 US jobs added in October — bringing the total recovered jobs since August to 27,800. Those autumn gains bring the loss of US IT jobs to 75,100 for the year, down from a high of 102,900 job losses as of August, according to the most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates.
The IT job market continues to struggle with the closure of many small- and medium-sized businesses and of many retail operations, in addition to broad cutbacks in all industries meant to preserve cash, said Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis.
In addition, the percentage of data center jobs has dropped from 10% of the US IT workforce to 9% since the pandemic began, indicating more severe cutbacks in back-end IT services as part of a shift to the cloud.
A separate report by Foote Partners, which conducts salary surveys on IT jobs and certifications, shows a mixed bag for IT pros in 2020, with some skills increasing in compensation despite (or because of) the pandemic, and others losing value. On average, though, IT compensation has held steady.
Gainers include a variety of positions involving security, Apache ZooKeeper distributed configuration, the Hbase SQL database, the Ethereum blockchain, Oracle Coherence caching, Marketo marketing automation, the Apache Flink stream-processing framework, natural language processing, master data management, and the Keras deep learning API.
Decliners include BusinessObjects and Cognos application development, Google App Engine and JSON web development, Oracle Application Server, SAP Enterprise Business Applications, SNA networking, mobile device management, Cisco’s UCCX call center platform, big data analytics, Windows NT, Suse Linux, and Tibco Enterprise Messaging Service.
October 2020
Although the IT and telecommunications job market in the US is still expected to shrink by 64,000 jobs this year compared to 2019, the recovery of IT jobs lost during the early days of the pandemic continued for a second month. The most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates shows that about 12,200 IT jobs were added in September following a net gain of 6,900 in August.
At the outset of the pandemic, more than 105,000 US IT jobs were lost as companies retrenched in the face of COVID-19, more than erasing the 90,200 jobs added in all of 2019. Those losses have been partially addressed since through rehiring and new hires. As a result, over the last nine months, IT jobs were down by 85,000.
However, Janco doesn’t forecast a recovery in the IT job marked until spring 2021, as the US economy suffers new waves of infections that slow or even reverse prior gains. In October, an additional wave of IT layoffs is expected as airlines furlough tens of thousands of workers now that federal job subsidies have ended for that industry.
Companies are leery about expanding during uncertainties around government action, particularly the stalled stimulus efforts, said Janco president Victor Janulaitis. The November presidential election is another cause for companies to wait and see. “Spending for IT products and services has all but stopped as companies reevaluate the state of the economy globally as new waves of selected shutdowns occur,” he said.
September 2020
By Ken Mingis, Executive Editor, Computerworld
Although the U.S. IT and telecommunications job market is still expected to shrink by 64,000 jobs in 2020 versus 2019, the worst may be over – and about a third of the IT jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to have come back by 2021. That’s according to the most recent survey of IT executives by management consultancy Janco Associates.
For the first time in six months, August saw a net gain in the number of IT jobs: up 6,900. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised the number of IT jobs lost in July, showing 4,400 fewer jobs were lost than originally reported. Still, over the last 12 months, IT jobs fell by 81,800, nearly erasing the 90,200 jobs gained in 2019.
“IT hiring will remain soft but improving slightly. …Major many companies are resuming existing operations slowly, but are holding back on any expansion until after the [Nov. 3] election,” said Janco’s latest report.
But some sectors will continue to lose jobs, it noted, including the airline industry, which is poised to lay off tens of thousands of employees across all roles, not just IT, as federal COVID-related subsidies end on Sept. 30. Cities such as Portland, Ore. that have seen ongoing civil unrest due to protests over police killings of Black citizens will also see deferred hiring until the unrest subsides, Janco said.
IT organizations remain cautious on spending, with very few new initiatives or expansions of current efforts being funded beyond the initial rampup in work-from-home and social-distancing technology investments at the start of the crisis.
August 2020
Coronavirus spikes in parts of the U.S. in July have worsened hiring conditions for IT professionals, and management consulting firm Janco Associates now doesn’t expect any rebound in hiring until late this year or early in 2021.
Janco now estimates that just 25,000 new IT jobs will be created in 2020; there are now more than 163,000 fewer tech jobs than a year ago. In July alone, another 10,900 IT positions disappeared, the company said.
“We have found that a number of companies have already shuttered their doors or are expanding layoffs that impact the IT job market,” Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “This includes oil and gas drillers like Whiting Petroleum and Diamond Offshore, retailers like J Crew, manufacturers like Briggs & Stratton, and grocers like Dean and DeLuca. As a result, IT professionals working for those companies are looking for new employment opportunities.
“Until after the election…, when the public feels [it] can go back to a normal life [and] more companies open their doors, hiring for new positions in IT will be limited at best,” he said. “In addition, the continued civil unrest is slowing confidence by the public, which in turn, hinders corporate confidence.”
He noted the stalemate in Washington, D.C. over new efforts to prop up the U.S. economy, as several states deal with increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases.
“Spending for IT products and services has all but stopped as companies reevaluate the state of the economy globally as new waves of selected shutdowns occur,” Janulaitis said. “With more companies adopting [work from home] to address ‘social distancing’ and avoid in-office contacts, fewer companies are taking an aggressive approach to any additional spending for IT products and services. It does not help that the U.S. Congress and the president are at a stalemate on pandemic relief.”
July 2020
The wave of IT layoffs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic did not end in May 2020 as expected, with June seeing 6,000 more layoffs as business uncertainties rose because of the increase in coronavirus infections in the U.S., according to new data from management consulting firm Janco Associates. The pandemic’s economic fallout had already led to about 117,000 job losses in U.S. IT positions in April and early May 2020.
The increase in COVID-19 infections across most U.S. states in June prompted the additional layoffs, and Janco’s June survey of U.S. IT organizations shows that further layoffs – though at the relatively small scale seen in June – are expected given business uncertainties. That survey also said that salary increases for IT staffers are “a thing of the past.”
The job losses were exacerbated by the extensive protests over the police killings of George Floyd and others, Janco said. That led to additional economic uncertainty, particularly in the retail industry hit by looting, leading to additional closings, deferred reopenings, and unexpected costs.
In addition, a Trump Administration decision last month to pause the use of H-1B visas, which are commonly used to fill IT positions, will not help U.S. IT pros in the near term, Janco noted. Because it applies to new hires it does little to free up existing positions.
IT organizations don’t expect to begin hiring again until late 2020 or early 2021, assuming that the infections are under control and the economic reopening interrupted in June can resume. Without a sustained reopening, companies won’t see demand for goods and services that provides the money for new and replacement hires.
Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis now expects the net number of new U.S. IT jobs in 2020 will be about 30,000, versus the 94,500 it had expected before the epidemic struck. In 2019, the U.S. IT job market grew by 90,200.
June 2020
The wave of IT layoffs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, according to new data from management consulting firm Janco Associates. The pandemic’s economic fallout resulted in about 117,000 job losses in U.S. IT positions in April and early May 2020.
But Janco’s May survey of U.S. IT organizations shows that further layoffs are largely not expected. But neither is much IT job growth. IT organizations don’t expect to begin hiring again until late 2020, assuming that the gradual economic reopening now in progress continues and demand for goods and services resumes, providing the money for new and replacement hires.
Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis expects that the net number of new U.S. IT jobs in 2020 will be about 35,000, versus the 94,500 it had expected before the epidemic struck. In 2019, the U.S. IT job market grew by 90,200.
May 2020
It’s not yet at the level of “Brother, can you spare a dime?” for IT workers, as it is for many workers in retail, entertainment, and hospitality. But as it becomes apparent the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will be take several years, IT pros are seeing layoffs in the U.S. and diminished prospects for future work, both as staff and as contractors.
In April 2020, IT pros saw 102,300 layoffs in the U.S., according to management consulting firm Janco Associates. And Janco has now more than halved the expected IT job growth in 2020 that it predicted just a month ago – to 40,000 versus the earlier prediction of 95,400 IT jobs.
Janco’s current projection for U.S. IT jobs this year is now 3.6 million, down from 2019’s 3.7 million U.S. IT jobs.
Companies have essentially stopped filling IT positions and halted new contract work, Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said, based on conversations with CIOs and CFOs. That means IT pros who lose their jobs will have little prospect of employment or contract work in 2020.
“Until the public begins to feel they can go back to a normal lifestyle and companies open their doors, IT hiring will be nonexistent,” he said.
Janulaitis noted that there had been a surge in IT contract work at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis to help set up work-at-home environments, from collabration tools to VPNs. “The demand for contractor help in this effort was high initially, but now is non-existent,” Janulaitis said. The tech startup sector is also in crisis.
Janulaitis does expect IT hiring to begin picking up at the end of the year. That’s in line with the current thinking for the economy as a whole; various U.S. Federal Reserve executives and economists have said they expect the current effective jobless rate of about 23% to fall back but still be about 10% in 2021. The official jobless rate stands at 14.7% – versus 3.5% in 2019 – but that count misses recent layoffs, laid-off people not looking for work during the crisis, and the self-employed.
Broadly, expectations of a V-shaped recovery have given way to expectations of a prolonged decline and then slow recovery, since there is no vaccine for COVID-19, treatments and testing are not available at meaningful levels to determine who can work safely, it’s not known whether infected people develop immunity, and the ramifications of the various efforts now under way to reopen parts of society and economy remains unknown.
The fate of IT positions is not immune from these general economic factors. “All of this has put IT professionals the same state as the rest of the labor market,”Janulaitis said.
Counterpoint analyst Shubham Singh said: “Premiumization has started in the world’s second largest smartphone market and Apple has again got the timing right to benefit from this trend through its devices and financing offers.”
This is all good news for Apple, of course. But what might it mean for your company and what lessons can you pick up from Apple’s achievements here?
For most of us, those lessons are limited.
It was the sheer scale of Apple’s business that helped encourage India to offer the government subsidies and support that are enabling business extension there. Smaller, less powerful companies won’t be able to access the same degree of cooperation. Still, India remains incredibly focused on building up its tech industry, so even smaller start-ups might experience some positive results if they choose to move business there.
Building in, building out, building up
Apple isn’t just in the device business. It’s also in the accessories, services, and software businesses and has a pretty good track record for convincing its tribes of happy customers to purchase multiple products and services over time. Apple’s foothold with iPhone sales in India will become something more significant over time.
Like so many economies, India is also on an inexorable journey to digital transformation. One of India’s bigger software businesses is Zoho, a company that literally makes the software used by so many companies worldwide to digitize their business. As new tech businesses get into India, you’ll see them realize the big opportunity that digital-first processes always unleash in new markets. And while India’s tech economy is expected to grow at a slower rate in 2024, (thanks to global instability), it is still expected to become a $253.9 billion (net) business by the end of the year.
The global outage that last month prevented McDonald’s from accepting payments prompted the company to release a lengthy statement that should serve as a master class in how not to report an IT problem. It was vague, misleading and yet the company used language that still allowed many of the technical details to be figured out.
(You know you’ve moved far from home base when Burger King UK makes fun of you— in response to news of the McDonald’s outage, Burger King played off its own slogan by posting on LinkedIn: “Not Loving I.T.”)
The McDonald’s statement was vague about what happened, but it did opt to throw the chain’s point-of-sale (POS) vendor under the bus — while not identifying which vendor it meant. Classy.
The statement, issued shortly after the outage began — but before it had ended — said: “Notably, this issue was not caused by a cybersecurity event; rather, it was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change.” A few hours later, it quietly changed that sentence by adding the word “directly,” as in “was not directly caused by a cybersecurity event.”
That insert raised all kinds of issues. Technically, it meant that there absolutely was a “cybersecurity event” somewhere — presumably not affecting McDonald’s or its POS provider — that somehow played a role in the outage. The most likely scenario is that either McDonald’s or the POS provider learned of an attack elsewhere (quite possibly multiple attacks) that leveraged a POS hole that also existed in the McDonald’s environment.
One of the two then decided to implement an emergency fix. And due to insufficient or non-existent testing of the patch, the company’s systems crashed. That would explain how the outage could have been indirectly caused by a cybersecurity event.
Let’s go back to the statement, where we find more breadcrumbs about what likely happened. In it, McDonald’s Global CIO Brian Rice said: “At approximately midnight CDT on Friday, McDonald’s experienced a global technology system outage, which was quickly identified and corrected. Many markets are back online, and the rest are in the process of coming back online. We are closely working with those markets that are still experiencing issues.”
Initially, those sentences would appear to have a contradiction. One sentence said the outage was “quickly identified and corrected” and the next says that many markets are still offline. If it had actually been quickly corrected, why were so many systems still offline at the time of the statement?
The answer that seems to explain the contradiction is DNS. That would explain how the problem could have been “corrected,” but the correction had not reached everyone yet. DNS needs time to propagate and given the far-flung geographies affected (including the United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan), the one- to two-day delay that hit some areas is just about what would be expected with a DNS issue.
As for throwing a vendor under the bus, consider the chain’s second update, which said: “In the coming days, we will be analyzing the issue and pushing for accountability across our teams and third-party vendors.” That’s fine. But the day before, the statement said that the outage “was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change.”
The incident was only hours-old and the company wanted to be clear that it was the vendor’s fault. Methinks, Ronald, thou doth protest too much. Who hired the vendor? Whose IT team was managing that vendor? Did the McDonald’s IT team tell the vendor to fix it immediately? Was there an implication that if they cut a few procedural corners to make it happen, no one would ask questions?
This line might be warranted if the third-party went renegade and made changes itself without asking McDonald’s. But that seems highly unlikely. And if it were true, wouldn’t McDonald’s have said so directly? Also, there’s a certain oddness to throwing someone under the bus while keeping the company’s identity secret. You don’t get points for blaming someone and then not saying who is being blamed.
Then there is the franchisee factor at play here. McDonald’s doesn’t own many of its restaurants, but it does impose strict requirements, which includes that they have to use McDonald’s chosen POS system. (♩ ♪ ♫ ♬You deserve a break today, so we broke our POS, you can’t pay!♩ ♪ ♫ ♬)
Note: Computerworld reached out to McDonalds for comment hours after the initial statement was issued. No one replied.
Mike Wilkes, director of cyber operations at The Security Agency, was one of several security people who saw DNS as the most likely culprit.
“This looks like it was a DNS failure that turned into a global outage, a configuration error,” he said. “It was probably an insufficiently tested patch or a fat-fingered patch.” Wilkes noted that the outage did not impact the McDonald’s mobile app, which — if true — is another clue to what happened.
Part of the delay was not merely that DNS needs time to propagate, but that McDonald’s would have needed to send the change via different DNS resolvers. “This was likely a DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) change intended to improve their security.”
Wilkes also suspected that a TTL (time to live) setting played a role. “No one likely had time to lower the TTL to have a recovery time of five minutes,” he said, which would further explain the lengthy delays.
Terry Dunlap, co-founder and managing partner of Gray Hat Academy, also believed the McDonald’s outage appeared to be an attempt to quickly block a potentially imminent attack. “They were saying ‘Give me a life vest. I don’t want to be drowned by the wave that is coming.’”
More strategically, Dunlap was not a fan of the statements McDonald’s issued.
“It’s much better to be proactive and as detailed as possible upfront,” he said. “I don’t think that the statements conveyed the level of warm and fuzzies needed. I would recommend going into more details. How did you respond to it? Why did it happen? What impacts have occurred that you are not telling me? (The McDonald’s statements) create more questions than answers.”
This appropriately raises yet again the enterprise risk coming from third-parties — especially those who, as might be the case with McDonald’s, act on their own and cause problems for the enterprise IT team.
“Every company is being flyspecked for their third-party risk management right now,” said Brian Levine, a managing director with Ernst & Young (EY). “Third-party risk management is increasingly being put under the microscope today by courts, regulators and companies.”
McDonald’s did not initially file an SEC report on the incident. Given that Wall Street did not react in any serious way to the McDonald’s outage, it’s unlikely McDonald’s would consider the outage material. As for the third-party POS provider, it’s unclear whether it filed a report as its identity has yet to be confirmed.
Among the important lessons here for all enterprise IT, is to give careful thought to outage statements. Anything beyond, “Something happened. We are investigating and will report more once facts are known and verified” is going to leave clues.
Vague implications are not your friend. If you are ready to say something, say it. If you are not, say nothing. Splitting the middle as McDonald’s did won’t likely serve your long-term interests (not unlike eating McDonald’s food). But at least a quarter-pounder tastes good and is filling.
Scale AI, the data processing company that advertises itself as a way to train generative AI on higher-quality information, has apparently shut down access to its platform in several countries, leaving gig workers in the lurch.
The company, which does much of its data processing through a subsidiary called Remotasks, cut access to its portal for workers in Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan in March, according to a report by Rest of World. The gig workers used by Remotask, and by extension Scale, improve data quality by adding labels, annotations, and general human input to information set to be processed by AIs.
The idea is to help AI tools learn by shaping their perceptions of, say, lidar data from cars or other information.
According to Rest of World’s report, workers — many of whom rely on Remotasks for their main income — were greeted by a message saying that “we regret to inform you that at the moment we are unable to provide service in your location.” The report also notes that remote workers “often have few reliable ways to contact supervisors or escalate complaints,” despite the presence of hotlines and Slack channels.
Scale released a statement in September detailing its relationship with Remotasks, which it calls the “data annotation” side of its business. The company said it partners with the Global Living Wage Coalition and conducts quarterly pay analyses to “ensure fair and competitive compensation” for the gig workers annotating its data. Scale also criticized “misunderstandings and mischaracterizations” about the way it treats its workers through Remotasks.
Scale could not be reached for comment on Rest of World’s report, which said that many of the workers affected by the apparent shutdown only found out about it when they attempted to log in and work. According to Rest of World, a company spokesperson blamed the lack of communication with workers on an administrative error, while saying that the shutdowns were put in place for “enhanced security protocols.”
In addition to the shutdowns in Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya, Rest of World reported that new signups for Remotask work had been blocked in several other countries, including Thailand, India, Poland and Vietnam.
Rest of World’s report ran a day after The Information reported that Scale — which has been one of the AI industry’s early success stories — was up for a new round of funding, courtesy of VC firm Accel, which was an early investor in Scale. The proposed funding round would raise the company’s value to $13 billion, a rise of 80%.
The company joins several other big names in the generative AI industry, including AI-powered robot creators Figure AI, LLM creator Anthropic, and market powerhouse OpenAI in lining up hundreds of millions in new funding from investors desperate to capitalize on the much-hyped technology, according to a report from siliconAngle.
Amazon has announced it is investing $2.75 billion in OpenAI-rival Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the AI startup to $4 billion, as initially announced. In September last year, Amazon had invested an initial tranche of $1.25 billion.
As part of this partnership, Anthropic will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its main cloud provider for key operations, including safety research and the development of foundational models. Anthropic will also use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips for building, training, and deploying future models.
This arrangement will enable AWS customers to access upcoming generations of Anthropic’s foundational models through Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s fully managed service.
“Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers’ experiences, and look forward to what’s next,” Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Data and AI at AWS, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Anthropic unveiled its updated AI model, Claude 3, in three versions — Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku — ranked by capability. The company claims its most powerful version, Opus, outperforms GPT-4.
Attempts to leverage AI
Amazon is just one of several large tech companies that Anthropic has partnered with.
Last October, Anthropic said that Google would invest up to $2 billion in the company, according to Reuters. Its other partners include Zoom and Korea’s largest mobile operator SK Telecom.
In a separate announcement last week, the company also said that Haiku and Sonnet were now available on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform. Analysts suggest that Amazon’s investment could be an attempt to strengthen its presence in the cohort, as it faces competition.
“This investment is part of a more significant trend of big tech companies investing heavily in generative AI startups,” said Thomas George, president of CyberMedia Group and CMR. “Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and Salesforce have invested significantly. Amazon’s investment in Anthropic, up to $4 billion, with an initial $1.25 billion infusion, underscores its commitment to advancing in the AI sector and directly competing with rivals like Google.”
Backing Anthropic could strategically position Amazon to harness cutting-edge AI technologies. Though Amazon has a minority stake in the company, this move strengthens Amazon’s AI capabilities and signals its intent to be a frontrunner in the AI and cloud computing domains, according to George.
“Anthropic’s decision to primarily use Amazon’s cloud services and proprietary chips, such as AWS Trainium and Inferentia, for building, training, and deploying its models could have far-reaching technological and business implications,” George said.
“This collaboration is poised to accelerate the development of advanced AI models and technologies, leveraging Amazon’s robust cloud infrastructure and chip capabilities. The synergy between Anthropic’s AI expertise and Amazon’s cloud leadership and technological resources may result in ground-breaking AI applications and services.”
Customers across domains
Companies across industries are already using Amazon Bedrock to build their generative AI applications with Anthropic’s Claude AI, according to Amazon. These include some big names like Siemens, Pfizer, and Delta Airlines.
The latest update comes on the heels of a recent announcement that AWS, Anthropic, and Accenture are joining forces to assist organizations, particularly those in highly regulated fields such as healthcare, public sector, banking, and insurance, in adopting and scaling generative AI solutions responsibly.
Founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI staffers Daniela Amodei and CEO Dario Amodei, Anthropic has quickly emerged as a significant rival to OpenAI, attracting significant investment.
Perhaps seeking to grab the limelight from the Department of Justice’s ludicrously articulated antitrust suit against Apple, the European Commission this morning confirmed it will investigate the company, along with Google, Amazon, and Meta, for noncompliance with the Digital Markets Act.
“The Commission suspects that the measures put in place by these gatekeepers fall short of effective compliance of their obligations under the DMA,” the statement says.
In a statement today, Apple said:
“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations. Teams across Apple have created a wide range of new developer capabilities, features, and tools to comply with the regulation.”
Just last week, Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission in charge of competition policy, told Reuters: “There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be investigating,” she said.
Europe will look at:
Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store
The choice screen for Safari
Apple’s new fee structure for alternative app stores
Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play
Alphabet’s self-preferencing on Google Search
Meta’s Pay or Consent model
Amazon’s ranking practices on its marketplace
The Commission says it is concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be “preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA.” It is also concerned Apple has not yet fully complied with its demand that end users should be able to uninstall any software applications on iOS.
Fines could be immense
Europe has the power to fine companies up to 10% of global turnover, rising to 20% in the case of repeated infringement.
The trading bloc can also force a company to be broken up or refrain from introducing other services, the Commission said in a statement.
Things may move fast from here on in, as the Commission says it intends to conclude proceedings within 12 months. Penalties may include huge fines and enforced changes in business practices — including enforced breakup of the company.
I watched as Apple’s team struggled to gain some recognition for their arguments from what felt like an unfriendly room. Despite the inclement frost, Apple executives argued that its proposals so far should be seen as a v.1, that it has a road map for additional changes, and that it has developed what it has put forward in some collaboration with Europe’s teams.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton confirmed that Apple has been working with the Commission, saying, “We have been in discussions with gatekeepers for months to help them adapt, and we can already see changes happening on the market.”
He doesn’t think changes have gone far enough, however: “But we are not convinced that the solutions by Alphabet, Apple, and Meta respect their obligations for a fairer and more open digital space for European citizens and businesses. Should our investigation conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeepers could face heavy fines.”
What Europe said
Vestager, who was seen celebrating the changes Europe has forced on Apple thanks to the DMA on March 7, said in a statement: “We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies [Apple, Google, Facebook] do not fully comply with the DMA. We will now investigate the companies’ compliance with the DMA, to ensure open and contestable digital markets in Europe.”
In theory, the DMA aims to open up the digital markets by preventing Big Tech firms from slowing competitive evolution within those markets.
For good or ill, and whether it eventually ends up providing any significant benefit to consumers or not, Europe clearly means to change the tech industry.
Alex Haffner, competition partner at UK law firm Fladgate, said in a statement: “The fact that the Commission has decided already to consider enforcement action demonstrates how seriously it is taking the new regime and also its absolute insistence on taking pre-emptive action to regulate Big Tech rather than waiting for complaints about their behaviour to filter in.”
The flood could become a deluge
Regulators worldwide will be watching all this antitrust activity in Europe and the US with interest.
What Apple and the other players in Big Tech will want to achieve will be to protect as much as they can of their current business models while making changes sufficient to stave off fines or additional penalties.
However, in parts some of the challenges regulators are raising may pose existential problems for these companies. At what point will regulation kill the geese? And what happens to digital economies in the US, UK, and elsewhere once they are extinguished?
Cramer’s reaction reflects the opinion of most industry observers who see the weaknesses of the allegations it contains.
Apple is facing regulatory action across the world. The EU has already forced the company to make changes that open its platform. But the Department of Justice (DOJ) litigation is far more ambitious and aims at Apple’s control of the ecosystem — it’s an existential attack some say will require the courts to accept a redefinition of decades old antitrust law.
Attorney General Merrick Garland even argued that Apple’s been doing well, not because it is making its own products better, but because it somehow makes other products worse.
The DOJ’s flawed history with the iPod also seems central to its case. And yet, in making that argument, it ignores so many aspects of the success of that product. Another troublesome element is that some of these arguments have been raised before when a judge decided Apple did not violate antitrust law.
Weak arguments don’t make the grade
Fair weather stock dealers might be exiting Apple’s stock on the news, but analysts are more sanguine. They know two things:
One, litigation will take years.
Two, accusations are one thing, proving them at trial is another.
Apple’s now-muddy walled garden will likely emerge with a couple of additional gates, but the substance of the case is unlikely to stand the test of time.
In its lawsuit, the DOJ makes numerous arguments, some of which seem to betray a twisted view of reality.
“Reading the DOJ/Apple lawsuit again and some of this, such as the bizarre iPod history, is like a ChatGPT hallucination,” said Chance Miller on X/Twitter.
I’m hearing similar verdicts from the analyst community.
“I think the arguments are weak,” Creative Strategies President and analyst Carolina Milanesi told me. “First, Apple does not have a monopoly — even in the US, which is one of their strongest markets, they have less than half of smartphones sales.”
“While Apple arguably leverages its power and platform when it comes to the App store, it clearly doesn’t have a monopoly in smartphones in the US market, so the focus of the US Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit seems a bit misguided,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.
Inventing a new term for monopoly
This is not the same as the 1990s antitrust suit against Microsoft. Windows then truly dominated PC software with more than 90% of the world’s PCs running the operating system. Right now, Apple holds about fifty percent of the US smartphone market with the rest running Android. That divide rises and falls, but has been pretty steady for a decade.
To make its argument, the DOJ simply invented a new market segment to accuse Apple of dominating: “performance smartphones.”
But even with those massaged “performance smartphone” figures, the department can only claim Apple runs 70% of all smartphones in the US – and this is not replicated internationally.
The DOJ also uses revenue rather than unit sales to support its argument and accuses Apple of attempting to build a monopoly through its various businesses.
Jason Snell has an excellent look at the department’s arguments. “Apple’s position in the U.S. market is certainly strong, but regardless of how you view its behavior, it will be interesting to see if the DoJ can make a convincing case that Apple is actually a monopoly, given the presence of Samsung and Google in the market,” he wrote.
I say it seems twisted to define a market Apple doesn’t dominate by stressing the one section of that market it actually does. It’s the equivalent of saying Koenigsegg monopolizes the car market because it dominates the market for super-fast cars; that kind of market segmentation isn’t a monopoly, it’s just a definition developed to fit the argument the DOJ wanted to make.
On user privacy
The department really seems to have one area of the Apple business in its sights. That part is, of course, the privacy law enforcement has been trying to erode for so long.
In its litigation, the DOJ says: “Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security interests.”
It even argues (based on no reality I’ve ever been in) that by securing its platform Apple erodes the evolution of the security market — presumably, it sees platform insecurity as a small price consumers can pay so security firms can sell them varying degrees of security and hackers can build their business on the back of attacked iPhones.
This is by no means a new battle.
Former Apple product designer Michael Darius sees privacy and Apple’s attempts to protect it as the main target in the litigation. On X/Twitter he wrote: “Apple has been fighting the DOJ for more than 20 years over the ability to protect user privacy. District court judges have no idea how their personal quality of life is actually protected by making sure Apple devices are more secure than their competitors. People are so disconnected from understanding how the work Apple does to protect their privacy personally benefits them it disgusts me.”
“The argument I struggle with the most is that they want to pull apart what makes the Apple experience,” said Milanesi. “At the end of the day, someone who uses an iPhone is getting an experience that is made of the hardware, the software, the apps, and the services. Arguing that Apple should accept other payments other than Apple Pay makes no sense, as the experience would just not be the same.”
“While we understand the logic behind the lawsuit, it’s also very clear that Apple’s competitive moat is a result of its seamless integration of hardware, software, and services, which creates an unmatched closed ecosystem of hardware and solutions offerings,” said Morgan Stanley analysts.
They argue that it is Apple’s innovation, rather than any monopolistic behavior, that’s contributed to its success. This has generated US consumer satisfaction of 99%, they argue, and the DOJ’s arguments seem to overlook the value consumers place in Apple’s unique platform.
Milanesi again: “I would also say that consumers are free to go where they want if they are not happy with the services; there is a world of Android that offers viable alternatives, both in hardware and services. If they stay with Apple, it’s because there is a value delivered to them. Even the people who complain that they are locked in because the family uses FaceTime could use Teams or WhatsApp for calls on an iPhone — the reason they don’t is because FaceTime is a seamless experience.”
The argument is that people are free to buy what they want to buy. Not only that, but consumers have purchased Apple’s products because they like the integration — even though other platforms do exist.
But apparently it’s Apple’s fault that other platforms have not succeeded.
Can Apple do mind control?
The DOJ burned my eyes with arguments that Apple in some way caused the truly dreadful Amazon Fire Phone to fail. It did, but only by delivering a far, far better product.
The regulators made similar arguments that Apple was somehow responsible for the market defeat of Windows Mobile, but that’s really difficult to accept, given the sheer scale of Microsoft’s competitive foray into the market.
Writing on X/Twitter, Joanna Stern, senior personal tech columnist at the Wall Street Journalwrote, “Oh yes, I’m remembering it now, Apple made Amazon use a dumb 3D screen and slow processor. It was the same day Apple made Microsoft acquire Nokia.”
“The more of this DOJ lawsuit I read, the more sloppy it gets,” wrote analyst Benedict Evans. “It reminds me of that FTC case against Meta that just…forgot to define Meta’s ‘monopoly.’ The judge threw it out and the FTC had to refile the whole thing.”
Is this an existential attack?
With such labyrinthine twists and turns to its case, it’s almost as if the DOJ is engaged in an existential attack against Apple’s entire business model on very slim arguments.
“Regulators hate successful companies,” Cramer said.
O’Donnell also criticized the approach taken by the DOJ.
“The company could certainly do a few things with regards to messaging apps, wallet apps and a few others to level the playing field, but the company has stubbornly refused to do those kinds of things up until now. The recent EU-driven changes to the App store seem like more the thing the US government should focus on.”
Anecdotally, another point of interest to all of this is that within minutes of the DOJ revealing its case, my email box seemed to become infested by a scourge of legitimate seeming opinion providers I’d never heard of before wanting to make arguments supporting the DOJ case. I’ve only ever seen such coordination during media launches and political elections….
Former Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky published an interesting and extensive set of comments about the case. He points to dozens of examples of poor arguments and states: “This is far more ideological and political than it is legal or business. It is not just that it is weak, but the foundation is based on ahistoric tales of the past.”
Despite being based on so many risible arguments, the case will proceed.
Thousands of lawyers will be involved, Apple’s executives will be called in to depositions, and vast quantities of company resources will be squandered over a period of years on the case.
Could things have been different?
Perhaps if Apple had proactively loosened up more elements of its business it might have blunted the appetite for action against it.
JumpCloud’s Tom Bridge wrote on Mastodon: “No matter what you think of the DOJ’s suit against Apple, there are a number of things that Apple could’ve done over the years to prevent it from ever getting to this state. Their refusal to do so was dogged, determined, and baffling.”
For Apple, the case will dent its productivity and distract its top executives. In a couple of years, the case might get to trial, there will be appeals and at some point, probably around 2030, a judgement will be made. The DOJ has been clear that the idea of forcing the break-up of Apple is on the table.
Such a dramatic outcome seems unlikely. Bernstein analysts believe the “worst case” scenario will be that Apple ends up being forced to pay a fine.
One harsh accusation came from GigaOm founder Om Malik, who wrote: “I think regulators both in the US and Europe actually need to ask the paying customers why they use Apple products. Also, my opinion of regulators hasn’t changed. They are just trying to secure their post-government gig.”
If Malik’s criticism were true, it’s unlikely that gig will be in Cupertino.
Though Microsoft removed Android app support from Windows 11, there are still ways to run Android apps on your PC if you want. Here are the best ways to do so, whether you’re using Windows 10 or Windows 11.
What happened to the Windows Subsystem for Android?
When Microsoft unveiled Windows 11, one of its big features was support for running Android apps with the “Windows Subsystem for Android.”
That feature was delayed, and Microsoft ended up launching it quietly. You could install the Amazon Appstore from the Microsoft Store on Windows, and then you could install Android apps from the Amazon Appstore on your Windows PC.
But most Android apps aren’t available on the Amazon Appstore — instead, they’re on Google Play. Neither Microsoft nor Amazon really spent much time pushing or advertising these Android apps.
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Hobbyists filled the void with tools that let you install (or “sideload”) Android apps from elsewhere in APK form and ways to install Google Play Services in the Windows Subsystem for Android so it could run more applications. (Many Android applications expect Google’s software and won’t work properly without it.)
These third-party developers essentially did the work Microsoft and Google refused to do to make the software more usable.
This month, Microsoft quietly announced it was removing the Windows Subsystem for Android from Windows 11. It wasn’t a huge loss because few people used it. And, while the software worked well, Microsoft never worked with Google to enable the kind of full Google Play Store support on Windows that Chromebooks offer. Android apps may have been a boon on Windows tablets, but Windows seems to be targeting “tablets” less than ever these days. In a world focused on laptops and desktops, Android apps aren’t a top priority.
Chris Hoffman, IDG
You can still use the Amazon Appstore if you’ve already downloaded it on your Windows 11 PC — but only until March 2025.
The best way to run Android apps on Windows: BlueStacks 5
BlueStacks was the best way to run Android apps on PCs before Microsoft launched Android app support in Windows 11. Now, with Microsoft giving up on Android apps, BlueStacks is still the best way to run Android apps on Windows.
BlueStacks gives you full access to the Google Play Store, making it easy to install Android apps. It’s also completely free, though it does have ads for mobile games and similar things, and it runs on both Windows 11 and Windows 10. Those ads are a little annoying, but they’re the price you pay — did I mention it works well and is completely free?
Generally, you’ll want to install and run BlueStacks 5. BlueStacks offers two versions: BlueStacks 5 is the traditional application that runs Android apps on your PC. BlueStacks 10 is totally different: It’s an app player focused on running demanding mobile games “in the cloud.” If you want to run a particularly demanding mobile game on a lower-end PC, BlueStacks 10 might be a better bet. But, for broad Android app compatibility, go for BlueStacks 5.
Chris Hoffman, IDG
BlueStacks comes with built-in access to Google’s Play Store in just a few clicks — no hacks necessary.
BlueStacks 5 is simple to set up — you can install it and launch “BlueStacks 5” from your Start menu to begin. In the BlueStacks app player window, you can click or tap “System Apps” and then select “Play Store” to launch the Google Play Store. Sign in with a Google account and you can then install and use Android apps on a window on your PC.
While BlueStacks is simple to use, it’s a fairly mature option packed with powerful options. For example, BlueStacks has a multi-instance feature so you can run multiple Android apps at once. Many competing similar apps aren’t anywhere near as polished.
Other ways to run Android apps on Windows
While BlueStacksis the best solution for most those looking to run some Android apps, there are other options, including:
Google Play Games: Google offers a beta version of Google Play Games for PCs. It’s designed for running mobile games on Windows PCs and supports “over 100 games” as of March 2024, according to Google’s website. This may be a good solution if you want to play a specific mobile game on your PC, but it’s not a way to run any Android app.
Google’s Android Emulator: Google offers an official Android emulator built into its Android Studio software. But this software is intended for developers, it’s not as easy to set up, and doesn’t perform as well as BlueStacks in my experience.
Other Android app players: There is a variety of other BlueStacks-style applications for running Android apps in a window. Many don’t have the Google Play Store built in, they might not deliver the same level of performance as BlueStacks, and they don’t have the long history BlueStacks offers. I recommend staying with BlueStacks.
These solutions run Android apps in a player window — the BlueStacks App Player window, for example — rather than running individual apps in their own app-specific windows, like Windows 11’s built-in Android support used to. This is unfortunate, and that lack of taskbar integration is annoying, but there’s not a great answer for this.
Use Phone Link to use Android apps on your PC
There’s another solution, though. It involves using an Android phone — if you have one.
Basically, you can run an Android app on your phone and see it on your PC’s desktop, interacting with it using your mouse, keyboard, and even your touch screen, if it has one. But the heavy lifting is done on your phone.
Windows 11 and Windows 10 have built-in support for this. It’s available in the Phone Link app — assuming you have a compatible phone. It’s one of the many useful features included in Phone Link. You must be using a phone that comes with “Link to Windows (pre-installed).” Microsoft offers a list of phones that come with this software, and it includes a variety of Samsung Galaxy phones as well as phones from OnePlus, HONOR, Asus ROG, and other manufacturers.
However, it does not include Pixel phones — I use a Google Pixel phone, so I don’t have access to this feature. (If there’s one theme here, it’s that Google and Microsoft don’t seem to be cooperating much!)
If your phone does support this feature, you just need to launch the Phone Link application — on first launch, it will guide you through a setup process — and look for Apps in the Phone Link window. You can even pin an Android app to your taskbar or Start menu for easy access.
If you have a phone without this software built-in, you don’t have the same level of polish in your available options. There are tools like AirDroid (screen mirroring) and Vysor to run Android apps on your PC and see them on your desktop, but I’m not sure there’s a huge demand for them.
Chromebooks still have Android app support, too
With Microsoft axing support for this feature, one thing is clear — if you want an operating system with first-class, integrated support for Android apps, ChromeOS may be your best bet. Chromebooks have built-in support for Android apps.
But Windows remains powerful and flexible, and even with Microsoft abandoning the Windows Subsystem for Android, there’s still a lot you can do with third-party software.
More importantly, Android apps are much more necessary on Chromebooks because ChromeOS isn’t compatible with as many applications. Between powerful native applications and high-quality web apps, Android apps just aren’t that important on Windows. Maybe it would be different if Windows had succeeded on touch-first tablets. But that dream of touch-first tablets is in the rearview mirror.
Now, Microsoft and the PC industry are all-in on AI PCs.
At this point, the best thing Mozilla Corp. has going for it is that it is not a publicly traded company, because if it was, its stock would be getting slaughtered. The company’s CEO, Mitchell Baker, recently departed, and recent reports put its share of the browser market in the low single digits.
But Mozilla is no stranger to challenges. It was born into adversity, launched after the collapse of Netscape Communications in 2003. As one of its last acts, Netscape open-sourced the code for its eponymous browser. The Mozilla Foundation was formed to take up the project abandoned by Netscape and create a new, modern browser. And it did so with Microsoft owning virtually the entire browser space by that point.
Mozilla released the Firefox browser in 2004 as the only viable alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Fast and nimble, Firefox ran circles around the aging, bloated IE. Mozilla’s browser saw a steady gain in market share, peaking in mid-2010 at 34%. But it would be all downhill from there as Google Chrome’s star rose throughout the ensuing decade. With Google putting its full weight behind Chrome, both Mozilla and Microsoft saw significant loss of market share.
Firefox came so late to the mobile space that it never had any ground to lose. For iPhone users there was Safari, built on WebKit, Apple’s open-source browser engine. On the Android side of things, Chrome was preinstalled.
Squeezed on all sides, Mozilla has tried in recent years to position Firefox as a privacy-focused browser, but to no avail: Firefox’s market share has dwindled to just 3.3% while Chrome commands 68.8%, according to W3Counter. The federal government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which monitors traffic to government websites for the past 90 days, puts Firefox at only 2.2% of the market.
“Consumers and business users adopt what works best for them, and they are free to change browsers on a whim or to try the newest and latest features,” said Todd R. Weiss, an independent consultant.
“Without a price tag or commitment for browsers, it is hard to grow brand loyalty, especially as the products, their security, features, improvements, and reputations change constantly over time,” he said. “That is what happened to Firefox, as it happened to Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and other previously popular browsers over the last several decades.”
Part of the problem is Mozilla’s business model. Mozilla Corp., which manages Firefox, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, and all profits are reinvested in the foundation’s open-source projects. It is hard to monetize “free,” which is why there has never been an open-source company the size of Microsoft, Oracle, or SAP.
“Mozilla basically lives off donations. They have no marketing budget. If they want to survive, they need to find a path to profit so they become self-sustaining and can afford to compete with the products they offer,” said Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group.
“They need some out-of-the-box-thinking and a focus on creating a revenue stream that will sustain them. Without that, they are on a path to corporate death, with the only question being when they’ll have to turn out the lights,” he added.
Mozilla doesn’t appear to be in any danger of closing up shop just yet. According to its most recent annual report for calendar year 2022, the company is sitting on more than $1 billion in cash, equivalents, and short-term investments. Its debt is minimal.
But it is also wholly dependent on Google. Of the $593 million in revenue for 2022, $510 million of that was royalties paid by Google. Those royalties come from making Google the default search engine in the Firefox browser. Subscriptions and ad revenue were just $75 million.
Mozilla has tried to break its Google dependency by diversifying its products, offering everything from an encrypted email service to a VR-focused browser. But critics say it has spread itself too thin, with too many projects taking resources from Firefox. The departure of CEO Baker last month, appointment of an interim CEO through the end of the year, and subsequent round of layoffs have done little to instill confidence in Firefox’s future.
“The shakeup at the top is usually not a good sign,” said Joe Karasin, president of digital marketing firm Karasin PPC. “I suspect that there are further problems on the horizon, as Firefox hasn’t really innovated anything new in the past few years, and they allowed DuckDuckGo to really own the ‘private browser’ messaging and space.”
Mozilla declined our request for comment.
Another problem exacerbating the issue has been Google and Microsoft pressing the accelerator on AI tools, while Firefox has not incorporated AI on any real level and is only just now starting to pivot toward AI integration.
“As the bigger brands continue to innovate, companies like Mozilla will eventually be among the long list of also-rans in the browser market,” said Karasin. “As the world has trended toward mobile browsing, iPhones have built-in Safari browsers, and Androids obviously have Google Chrome. Firefox has been downloaded over 100 million times from the Google Play Store, but how many monthly and daily active users it has is anyone’s guess.”
But Weiss holds out hope for a turnaround for Firefox. “I’m not sure if Firefox can do anything to reverse these trends, but it is possible if they add more features that users love from browsers such as Chrome and even Safari,” he said. “Maybe the Firefox team needs to be listening better.”
It’s worth noting that Firefox is the only mainstream browser built on an independent, open-source browser engine whose roots don’t go back to Apple’s WebKit engine. Google based its Blink engine on WebKit, and Blink powers both Chrome and Chromium, the open-source browser upon which most other modern browsers are built, including Opera, Brave, and Microsoft Edge. Continuing to develop Firefox’s Gecko engine — and thus preventing a browser monoculture — is important for the health of the web, say open-web advocates.
“Firefox is worth maintaining and trying to grow again,” Weiss said. “It has good bones.”
One glimmer of hope for Firefox and other alternative browsers has appeared in the wake of Apple’s recent rollout of iOS 17.4 to comply with the Eurpean Union’s Digital Markets Act. When iPhone users in the EU open Safari, they see a spash screen that lets them choose a default browser. Both Firefox and Brave have reported spikes in iOS installations among EU users since the rollout.
“When consumers get a clear choice of iOS browsers, they’re choosing alternatives to Safari. Maybe that’s why Google still hasn’t implemented a browser choice screen on Android,” Brave posted on X. Absent such a screen, Android users must actively seek out and download alternative browsers from the Google Play Store.
So Google has won for now, but let’s not forget that Microsoft won this crown once as well, and Google took it from them. However, Google has a search service tied to Chrome, something Internet Explorer did not have until Bing launched in 2009. That makes Google less likely to repeat Microsoft’s mistake and pull development resources from Chrome.
And there are plenty of alternatives to Chrome in addition to Firefox — Edge, Opera, Safari, Brave, and Vivaldi among them — none of which have yet to make a measurable dent in Chrome’s hegemony. For now, at least, Chrome rules the roost.
Janco
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Chris Hoffman, IDG