Only 9,700 tech jobs added to U.S. payrolls in January--2,100 more than the monthly average over the prior three months still less than the 2016 calendar year average gains of 10,475 tech jobs per month.
Computer Systems Design and Related Services jobs leads the way, adding 12,500 jobs for the month---8,300 more than in December—while Telecommunications jobs decline for the seventh consecutive month.
Vero Beach, FL – February 5, 2017. An analysis of Friday’s release of U.S. employment numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals a net increase of 7,000 information technology jobs in January2017 across four industry job segments commonly associated with technology professionals.
Computer Systems Design/Related Services segment, one of two that together map most closely to the tech services industries, led all job categories in job gains for the first time since October, adding a whopping 12,500 jobs to U.S. payrolls. More importantly this represented the largest gain in this segment since Foote Partners began analyzing and reporting monthly BLS data for tech jobs in 2009. [Figure 4] The other services segment, Management and Technical Consulting Services, posted a net loss of 200 jobs in January for its worst monthly performance since June 2015. This was unexpected given the average monthly gains of nearly 7,400 jobs in this segment for calendar 2016 and only 5,400 jobs in November and 4,100 jobs in December. Together, these tech services job segments added 12,300 jobs last month which is only slightly below the average monthly growth of 12,850 jobs in all of 2016 for these segments.
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