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The tech unemployment rate during the first quarter was 3.5 percent, compared with 7.7 percent in the overall economy, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers analyzed in a Dice.com report.
That’s actually a slight increase from the second half of 2012, when the tech rate stood at 3.3 percent for the final two quarters, while the overall rate fell from 8 percent in Q3 to 7.8 percent in Q4.
Unemployment for specific positions stands this way:
- Programmers, 6.3 percent
- Computer support specialists, 5.7 percent
- Computer systems analysts 3.7 percent
- Computer and information systems engineers, 3.5 percent
- Network and system administrators, 3.1 percent
- Database administrators 2.8 percent
- Software developers, 2.2 percent
- Network architects, 1.7 percent
- Web developers, 1 percent
The report points to the continuing growth in IT consulting, with more than 17,000 new positions added in the quarter, while jobs are still being shed in manufacturing and hosting.
It says 43 percent of new positions in technical consulting during the quarter went to women. Women have gained 156,100 positions in technical consulting since March 2004, but continue to make up 31 percent of that work force.
Dice previously reported that the gender wage gap has disappeared for like jobs. InformationWeek’s 2013 salary survey, however, disputes that. It found female IT staffers overall earn 13 percent less than men and female IT managers earn 10 percent less — the same difference as 10 years ago.
