The number of tech occupations fell by 99,000 in April and the unemployment rate for tech occupations edged upward to 2.3%, according to CompTIA’s analysis of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics job data from Friday.

However, it was a mixed message.

CompTIA reported that tech sector companies themselves increased staffing by 18,795 in April — the largest volume of monthly hiring since August 2022.

“It was another all-too-familiar month of mixed labor market signals,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The surprisingly strong tech sector employment gains were offset by the pause in tech hiring across the economy.”

The analysis noted employers listed more than 300,000 job postings for tech positions in April, signaling continued demand for tech talent. Within the tech sector, IT services and custom software development led the hiring pace by adding 12,700 positions, followed by cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting, which added 7,300.

CompTIA found that employers’ job postings for tech positions were widely dispersed geographically and by industry in April. The largest number of job postings occurred in administrative and support, finance and insurance and manufacturing. Among metropolitan markets, Washington, New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago had the highest volumes of job postings.

Meanwhile, the number of tech job postings that specify remote work or hybrid work arrangements as an option rose in April, with more than 65,000 positions across the US.