The number of IT jobs in the US edged up 0.17% in September from August to almost 5.2 million, reported TechServe Alliance, an association of IT and engineering staffing companies.

“While the rate of growth in IT employment continues to decelerate, it is important to put this trend in context,” said TechServe Alliance CEO Mark Roberts. “While demand is not as robust in certain sectors and for some skill sets, there continues to be a chronic shortage for high demand IT skills. Further, despite the deceleration in the rate of growth, IT employment continued to outperform the overall job market on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis.”

Year over year, IT employment in the US rose by 3.1% in September, representing an increase of 156,900 IT jobs.

The number of US engineering jobs edged up 0.1% in September from August to more than 2.5 million jobs. Year over year, the increase was a 0.7%, representing 17,200 engineering jobs.