IT unemployment hit a new high in August as organizations shift their focus to artificial intelligence, IT consulting firm Janco Associates reported.
Six percent of IT professionals were out of work in August, up from 5.6% the month before, according to the Sept. 6 report that analyzed U.S. Labor Department data. That's even as the overall U.S. unemployment rate dipped to 4.2% in August. The IT jobless rate has surpassed the national benchmark for seven of the past eight months.
IT unemployment hasn't been this bad since the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s but is now being driven by a pivot from traditional IT positions to AI and cybersecurity, Janco Associates CEO Victor Janulaitis wrote in the post.
"The roles that are most in demand right now are roles where candidates have expertise in security, AI and the cloud," Hyland Software CIO Steve Watt told The Wall Street Journal for a Sept. 7 story.