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96K IT jobs lost in US during May 2016

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Shrikanth
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Going by the latest IT employment data for the US market, it depicts a grim picture. The US IT sector employment fell by 28,800 jobs in May, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the technology industry. CompTIA workforce taxonomy consists of two components: IT employment within the IT sector and IT occupations across all other industries. The IT sector is the largest employer of IT occupation workers.

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The biggest dip happened in the IT occupation employment which declined in May by 96,000 jobs and stood at an estimated 4.452 million at the end of the month. What is worrying is the fact that May’s decline reversed the job gains the sector had realized through the first four months of 2016, when 24,400 jobs were added. IT sector employment was estimated at 4.351 million workers as of May 31.

Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence, CompTIA, reflecting on the findings said, " Much like the rest of the May jobs report, it was a down month for both IT sector and IT occupation employment. While there continues to be a strong demand for IT professionals – their unemployment rate remains about half of the national average – the data indicates some employers are holding off on adding headcount or reassessing their IT skills needs."

When we look at sector wise, Telecommunications accounted for the biggest decline in May, shedding 37,200 positions. Much of that total – about 35,000 – were telecommunications industry workers who were on strike and not on company payrolls during the month.

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But the bright spot is the uptick in the IT Services space. In the month of May, the IT services category, which added 7,400 jobs. From May 2015 to May 2016 employment in IT services has increased by 86,700 jobs. The report also mentions about the small gains were also reported last month in other information services, including search portals, which grew by 1,700 jobs; and data processing, hosting, and related services, which added 100 jobs.

Other sectors like Computer and electronic products manufacturing jobs declined by 800 jobs in May. The number of IT occupation job postings in May summed up to 115,000 - down 21,100 from April. Meanwhile, employers posted 58,700 job openings for software and application developer positions last month, more than half the total. Other categories included computer systems engineers and architects (15,500), computer systems analysts (13,900), IT project managers (13,700) and computer user support specialists (13,200).

The report also stated that while every job posting does not result in a new hire, and companies often will have multiple postings for a single position, the job posting data is another indicator of where companies are focusing their technology efforts and investments.

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