Staffing Industry Analysts published its IT Staffing Growth Assessment: 2019 Update today. The 108-page report provides an overview on the global state of the IT staffing market along with its future outlook. A copy of the table of contents is included below. SIA corporate members can access the full report here.

The war for talent has perhaps been the predominant trend in IT staffing in recent years. We summarize the current situation in the following excerpt from the report’s introduction:

“Demand for IT staffing services has been robust throughout the recovery. In fact, we have detected an acceleration of new orders since early 2018. The primary bottleneck on IT staffing growth lies squarely on the supply shortage of talent with the requisite experience and skill sets. The average US unemployment rate for computer and mathematical occupations further tightened from the already low level of 2.4% in 2017 to 2.1% in 2018. We see the struggle, for example, with buyers increasingly extending or even waiving term limits to maintain as many bodies as possible.

This imbalance of supply and demand for IT talent has reached critical levels for a growing list of skill sets, including many related to the rapidly emerging fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, IoT and blockchain. New computer science graduates (both undergraduate and post-graduate) entering the labor force and graduates of coding bootcamps have not produced sufficient supply to keep up with demand. Tighter immigration policies and the H-1B visa cap have also constrained the supply of available talent.

As illustrated in the table below, unemployment rates are notably low (below 2%) for five of the nine occupations listed, including the largest occupation, software developers (1.6%), which accounts for nearly a third of total employment for the entire group. The unemployment rate for computer network architects has effectively dropped to zero (0.1%).

Click on chart to enlarge.

For information on how to access the IT Staffing Growth Assessment: 2019 Update report, please contact our member services team.