Computerworld – WASHINGTON — In overall numbers, the IT industry employed 6.5 million people in 2001. That number had slipped to 5.9 million by mid-year.
In short, the U.S. tech industry as an employer is shrinking, even as it continues to regain jobs lost during the recession.
Although the U.S. continues to lead the world in everything from microprocessors to tablets to supercomputers, overall tech employment is being hurt by an erosion of manufacturing and telecommunications jobs. Some of that loss is being offset by growth in software services, according to the annual Cyberstates report by the TechAmerica Foundation, an industry group that tracks employment and other trends in the tech sector.
Tech firms have been, overall, one of the few bright spots in this economy. The industry added 115,000 jobs so far this year after losing that exact amount last year, according to TechAmerica.
But the tech industry has seen declines in certain tech employment areas.
In 2000, tech manufacturing employed 1.8 million in the U.S., but only 1.27 million by June this year.
Communication services, which includes the telecommunications industry, including wired, wireless, Web search portals, data processing and hosting services, was also at 1.8 million jobs in 2000 but fell to 1.2 million by June.
One bright spot was software services employment, which was at 1.6 million jobs in 2000, increased to 1.77 million by mid-year.
Another large category is engineering and tech services jobs, which employed 1.64 million in June. In 2005 there were 1.5 million employed in this category.
“There has been a shift in the technology industry,” said Matthew Kazmierczak, senior vice president at TechAmerica.
The industry is becoming more specialized, Kazmierczak said. The manufacturing and the technology services that are being done in the U.S. are often for the design and creation of new products and are not necessarily the labor intensive, production part of it, “but the high value creation of it,” he said.
Kazmierczak points to the latest iPhone, for instance. The design is done in the U.S. but the manufacturing is completed overseas.
Cyberstates uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for those businesses that are classified in these tech sector categories. It only captures data about people who are working directly in the technology industry. IT professionals employed by a retailer or financial services firm aren’t included.
Some types of IT work are becoming less labor intensive, said Kazmierczak. “You can have massive data centers and a very low number of people who are actually employed there,” he said.
Article source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9220545/IT_industry_shrinks_as_employer_in_last_decade?source=rss_keyword_patrick+thibodeau
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