Tech occupations added 86,000 jobs as tech companies cut 14,700

Technology occupation employment across the U.S. economy rose by 86,000 workers in August, while employers inside the technology industry itself reduced staffing by roughly 14,700 positions, according to CompTIA's Sept. 4 analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The two numbers are not in conflict. CompTIA's occupation measure counts tech professionals wherever they work, including hospitals, banks and factories. The 14,700 figure counts payrolls at technology companies and includes both technical and non-technical roles, which CompTIA said may reflect layoffs disclosed by U.S.-headquartered tech firms in recent months. A software company can cut recruiters, marketers and salespeople and still leave the national count of engineers, security analysts and infrastructure staff rising.

Who is doing the hiring makes the point more sharply. The highest volumes of new technology job postings came from professional, scientific and technical services, manufacturing, and administrative support services, with month-over-month gains also recorded in retail, wholesale trade and educational services. Active technology occupation postings ran at nearly 600,000 during the month, 42 percent of them newly advertised.

The roles in demand are not exotic. Growth showed up in tech support, infrastructure, project management and cybersecurity, which CompTIA reads as employers reinforcing core technology functions while adding new capability on top.

AI was the faster-moving slice. Active postings requiring AI-related skills passed 320,000 in August, up 4.5 percent from July, based on CompTIA's analysis of Lightcast data. CompTIA linked that to its own August research on corporate AI adoption, which it said shows employers moving past experimentation toward putting AI into business operations, generating demand for people who can apply the tools, run AI-enabled workflows and support AI-driven projects. The organization sells training and certification into that demand, so its reading of employer intent deserves that context.

A prior edition of the CompTIA jobs report, cited by the test-preparation site Easy-Prep, recorded an increase of about 47,000 tech occupation jobs, active postings above 600,000 for a second consecutive month, and a tech occupation unemployment rate of 2.9 percent against a national rate of 4.2 percent. Monthly occupational data carries high variance and volatility, as CompTIA notes in its own footnotes, and both the BLS figures and Lightcast postings are subject to backward revision. One month is a data point, not a direction.

The longer view arrived a week earlier and is considerably cooler. In its 2025-2035 employment projections, published August 27, BLS put total U.S. employment growth over the decade at 3.5 percent, or 5.9 million jobs, well below the 10.9 percent recorded over the previous ten years. Computer and mathematical occupations are projected to grow 7.3 percent, fifth fastest among the 22 major occupational groups, roughly double the all-occupation average but nowhere near the healthcare support group's 13.3 percent. Within that group, the outliers are narrow and senior: data scientists at 34.6 percent and computer and information research scientists at 21.8 percent.

BLS cautions that the precision of its projections does not account for the uncertainty of forecasting a decade of labor market change, and advises reading direction and relative size rather than exact values. Alongside the projections it introduced a new data product classifying occupations by their theoretical and observed exposure to artificial intelligence.

Some projected industry-side growth is tied to the physical build-out behind AI, including electricity demand and computing infrastructure. Computing infrastructure providers, data processing, web hosting and related services are projected to grow 25.1 percent and add 120,400 jobs. Professional, scientific and technical services, one of the sectors CompTIA identifies as generating the highest volumes of new tech postings, is projected to be the third fastest growing major sector at 8.6 percent and 926,700 new jobs, driven by demand for AI-based systems, R&D and consulting. Utilities is the fastest growing sector of all at 9.8 percent, almost entirely from electric power generation and transmission, including AI power demand, though its small base means only 58,800 jobs.

The sharpest contrast is administrative work. Administrative support services is currently among the top three sources of new technology job postings. Office and administrative support occupations, meanwhile, are projected by BLS to decline 4.0 percent and shed 752,100 jobs by 2035, the largest projected loss of any major group, in part because automation tools including AI are being integrated into workflows.