AI-Driven Roles Surge as Tech Job Growth Slows
The tech industry's unemployment rate remained largely stable in July, even as overall U.S. job growth slowed significantly. However, a closer look reveals a surging demand for specialized roles in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, highlighting a significant shift in the tech employment landscape.
According to an analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data by the nonprofit trade association CompTIA, the unemployment rate for technology workers saw a marginal increase from 2.8% in June to 2.9% in July. This occurred against a backdrop of the national unemployment rate rising slightly by 0.1% to 4.2%, a figure that has hovered between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024.
The broader U.S. economy added a modest 73,000 jobs last month, falling short of the anticipated 115,000. Within this context, employers across various sectors added 54,000 tech workers to their payrolls in July. This marks a notable slowdown from June, which saw a robust addition of 90,000 tech jobs. Furthermore, CompTIA's "Tech Jobs Report" indicated that tech industry companies themselves reduced their workforces by over 10,000 positions in July. These staffing reductions were concentrated primarily in IT and custom software services, cloud infrastructure, and telecommunications.
Despite the overall stability in tech unemployment, active tech job listings in July dropped by 3% compared to June, with new listings declining by 8%. High-demand roles continue to include software developers, systems engineers, tech support workers, cybersecurity specialists, and network engineers. While direct AI job listings remained flat, CompTIA’s AI Hiring Index points to an escalating demand for professionals with AI-related skills.
Kye Mitchell, head of IT staffing firm Experis North America, emphasized the rapid transformation within tech employment driven by AI and data innovation. Roles such as database architects and data scientists have seen explosive year-over-year growth, surging by 1,069% and 215%, respectively. Automation is also reshaping the IT sector, fueling demand for experts in machine learning, big data, and AI, and even necessitating new leadership positions in finance and legal industries with a focus on ethical AI implementation. "AI is redefining both the entry point into tech and the evolution of existing roles," Mitchell stated. "For tech professionals willing to upskill and adapt, this is a moment of unprecedented opportunity to lead in helping to shape the AI-powered workforce of tomorrow."
Even with the monthly decline in postings, the total number of open tech positions in July still exceeded 440,000. Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer, noted the mixed nature of the data: "In an environment where uncertainty is the norm, the latest tech employment data is a welcome mix of some reasonably positive measures, and then of course, some lagging measures."
Providing a different perspective, IT consultancy Janco Associates estimated the IT unemployment rate at 5.5%, higher than CompTIA's figures. Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis, however, predicted a drop of more than a percentage point in the coming months, anticipating an impending economic upturn. He expects IT job openings to grow in late 2025, particularly at smaller businesses preparing for new federal budgets and tariffs. Janulaitis lauded President Donald J. Trump’s budget bill, signed into law last month, as a potential catalyst for job creation and business profits.
Janulaitis reported increased optimism among CFOs and CIOs, citing lower gas prices and an inflation rate around 2%, a significant drop from the 9% peak several quarters prior. He stated that the number of unemployed IT professionals stands at 143,000, while open IT positions are just under 244,000. Most of these unfilled IT jobs, according to the BLS, are tied to emerging technologies such as AI, large language models (LLMs), blockchain, and "OmniCommerce," which refers to integrated shopping experiences across multiple channels, including physical stores, online sites, and mobile applications.
Despite his positive outlook on the broader economy, Janulaitis voiced strong criticism of the BLS’s reporting methods. The agency recently released revised data for earlier months that showed dramatically different job numbers, which Janulaitis deemed lacking "integrity" and "unacceptable." He attributed these "adjustments at those levels of magnitude" to potential "poor data capture, poor infrastructure, incompetence, or political gerrymandering." While Janco plans to continue reporting BLS data, the firm is reportedly redoing its IT Job Market forecasting models to incorporate "other public and private data." The revised figures, which indicated a slowing economy, reportedly led to President Trump's dismissal of the head of the BLS on Friday.