IT Employment Drops Markedly in November

Finally Succumbing to Broader Market Trends

After appearing to be largely resilient to the macroeconomic trends that has devastated the broader employment market through much of the year, IT employment finally succumbed to the inevitable.

In November, IT employment dropped by almost 34,000 jobs or .87% - the most significant one month drop in over 3 years. With the decline, IT employment stands at 3,876,200. Despite the precipitous one month drop, IT employment was still up 2.1 percent over the past year (Nov. 2007 - Nov. 2008) - continuing to outperform the general employment marketplace on a year-over-year basis.

“Given the continued deterioration of broad swaths of the economy, the marked drop in IT employment was not surprising. While IT employment continues to outperform the general employment marketplace on year-over-year basis, that is small consolation for those companies and individuals affected,” commented Mark Roberts, CEO of NACCB.

“While the drop appears to have affected a wide range of industries such as financial services, telcom, and manufacturing, the computer systems and design services sector seems to have bucked the trend. It managed to eke out a small gain (.19%) during the month.”

The IT employment index is published by the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses (NACCB), the national trade association representing IT staffing and solutions firms. For complete IT Index please visit: www.naccb.org/employment-index/index.cfm

Technical note: NACCB’s IT Employment Index is the first specific measurement of IT employment. This unique measurement of total IT employment is created monthly by studying the ongoing staffing patterns of a dozen IT and computer related occupations in 16 industries and industry sectors employing significant numbers of IT workers including the manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, financial, information services, business and professional services, and education and health industries. The monthly IT Employment Index is based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, which is subject to monthly revisions, with concomitant revisions to the Index. The IT Employment Index is also subject to annual revisions of BLS data. The IT Index was rebenchmarked in February 2008 with the publication of the BLS January 2008 employment report, reflecting significant revisions of employment data from the past several years.

Source: National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses