While the overall US jobs report proved a disappointment, an analysis of the data by the TechServe Alliance found IT employment had returned to pre-pandemic levels in April.

“After nine consecutive months of strong growth, IT employment on a year-over-over year basis has turned positive for the first time in 17 months,” TechServe Alliance CEO Mark Roberts said. “We have climbed out of a deep chasm.”

IT employment in the US rose by 0.85% year over year in April, representing an increase of 45,200 jobs for a total of more than 5.3 million jobs. On a month-over-month basis, IT employment rose 0.35%.

“While heartened by the strong consecutive run of IT job creation, we have now returned to the pre-pandemic environment where there is a chronic shortage of IT professionals in many skill sets,” Roberts said.

Separately, the TechServe Alliance reported engineering employment rose by 4.85% year over year in April, representing 120,400 jobs. Month over month, the increase was 0.14%.

There were approximately 2.6 million engineering jobs in the US in April.