IT Job Market: It’s All About Location

The TechAmerica Foundation’s 2013 Cyberstates report provides a state-by-state analysis of the IT job market, and other local organizations can help clarify the picture.

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The report found that the tech industry slightly outpaced the private sector overall in job creation during 2012. Again, that depends on location.

Local reports out of Arkansas and Tennessee, for example, say those markets are flat.

IT employment in Arkansas reached its lowest point in February, at an estimated 14,000 workers, according to a story at The City Wire based on numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local employers, though, say the talent pool is strong there.

Entrepreneur magazine, however, named Northwest Arkansas, though not a city, among “9 Cities You Wouldn’t Think Are Hubs for Tech Startups.”

A report from the Nashville Technology Council says 838 technology-related jobs were advertised in the region in the first quarter, and 1,225 in the state as a whole. The region’s employers advertised 836 open positions in the final quarter of 2012, according to the Nashville Business Journal.

Analysts were most in demand, followed by developers and engineers. Senior-level positions dominated.

Though not specific to IT, employers in the Research Triangle near Raleigh, N.C., added jobs at three times the rate of other parts of the state, according to the Research Triangle Regional Partnership. It found that 36,447 net new jobs were created in the Triangle during 2012.

The Cyberstates report, meanwhile, lists North Carolina among eight states that had tech wages that averaged more than twice the overall private-sector wage. The others: California, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico, Virginia and Arizona.