The number of jobs in IT ticked down 0.01% year over year in November despite an otherwise upbeat jobs report for the month, according to a report from the TechServe Alliance, a trade association of the IT and engineering staffing and solutions industry. However, it said the decrease was based on a shortage of workers, not a lack of demand.

“Unlike the last year-over-year decline in IT employment, which was a demand-based contraction, the weakness in IT employment over the past year has been exclusively a supply-driven phenomenon,” said Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance.

“Given the number of new entrants into STEM fields domestically is insufficient to meet demand coupled with highly restrictive immigration policies, we do not anticipate a material improvement in the state of the IT talent supply within the foreseeable future,” Roberts said.

On a month-over-month basis, IT employment was also down 0.07% to approximately 5.4 million, according to the TechServe Alliance.

Looking at engineering jobs, employment showed renewed strength, up 0.35% November compared to October for total employment of near 2.7 million.