Why it matters: Working in the tech industry used to ensure a lucrative career with plenty of opportunities, but things have changed in recent times. A new report reveals that the US IT job market declined for the second year in a row in 2024, the only consolation being that the drop wasn't as bad as 2023.
According to the report by tech consultancy Janco Associates, almost 71,000 IT roles have been eliminated over the last two years in the US. Most of them – 48,600 – were lost in 2023, while 22,300 went in 2024.
The biggest factors behind these losses were layoffs and AI. Layoffs.fyi shows that 152,264 tech industry employees were affected last year, a decrease from the 264,200 in 2023.
We're only in the first few weeks of the year and already we've seen more layoffs: Microsoft just said it is letting go of an undisclosed number of people across several divisions. It is also making separate performance-based cuts, something that Meta is also doing – though in these cases, the positions tend to be filled by new hires at a later point.
The impact that generative AI is having on the jobs market has been well-documented. Many positions such as data entry clerks, administrators, and customer service advisors are becoming fully automated, eliminating the human element completely.
It's not just jobs at the lower-end of the scale being impacted by AI. Many coders are being let go as AI removes the need for extra human workers, a fact illustrated in October when Google CEO Sundar Pichai said 25% of new code being created at the company is written by AI.
The upside of all this, according to Janco CEO M Victor Janulaitis, is that artificial intelligence and machine learning IT professionals, as well as some other roles including security professionals, remain in high demand.
"No longer are IT organizations populated with secretaries, data-entry operators, administrative monitoring clerks, and a massive help desk staff," Janulaitis added. "Rather the new roles are data architect, AI developer, e-commerce specialist, and similar roles." The findings further underline the importance of IT professionals adding some AI expertise to their skill sets.
Another recent report, this one by CompTIA, found that the tech unemployment rate dropped to 2% in December, the lowest level since November 2023, while the national unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1% for the month. However, there has been a decline of 6,117 jobs across all roles within the technology industry.
CompTIA noted that the most popular job positions that did not require a four-year degree were network support specialists (85% of listings did not have his requirement), tech support specialists (72%), and computer programmers (54%).
IT job market declines for second year in a row, but AI and cybersecurity roles remain hot
