US Tech Jobs Outlook Clouded By DOGE Cuts, Trump Tariffs

A pair of reports on tech sector employment trends in the United States suggest out-of-work techies right now have relatively decent prospects, but economic uncertainty and rapid policy changes initiated by the Trump administration mean the future job market looks less rosy.

One of the reports comes from consultancy Janco Associates, which pulled numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to its monthly analysis, the IT unemployment rate fell from 5.7 percent in January to 5.4 percent last month.

Overall IT employment actually shrank a little: about 9,100 jobs lost so far this year. Specifically, employers added 1,000 roles in January, then axed 10,100 in February, according to the report. That's out of around 4.1 million IT sector jobs in the US, mind you, equating to a total loss of less than a quarter of a percent.

Essentially, the number of unemployed US IT workers dipped slightly, even though the total number of available IT positions also contracted marginally.

IT pros who were unemployed last month found jobs more quickly than was anticipated

"IT pros who were unemployed last month found jobs more quickly than was anticipated as CIOs rushed to fill open positions," said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis.

Don’t get too comfortable, because Janulaitis thinks the employment market for IT professionals isn’t stable.

"Economic uncertainty continues to hurt overall IT hiring," the Janco boss said before reeling off a series of questions: "What will the impact of tariffs be? How long will it take for inflation to be brought under control? Will the Congress pass the Trump tax cuts? Will the Ukraine and Middle East wars be stopped?"

“All of these are issues that enterprises are facing, is impacting the pace of hiring of IT Pros," Janulaitis observed.

The other recent job market analysis came from certification org CompTIA, which monitors the job market for IT pros and those in tech-adjacent fields, such as telecoms and manufacturing.

Its monthly report for February found the rate of unemployment for techies across all industry sectors was lower than the national average, at 3.3 percent versus 4.1. The report also found tech employment across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 177,000 for the month.

That said, the unemployment rate is up from January's 2.9 percent, and “tech sector companies” shed 11,514 jobs in February, the org calculated.

CompTIA found about 490,000 job ads for techies in February, 48,000 of which were for software developers or software engineers. Both systems engineers/architects and tech support specialists each saw around 17,000 job postings. New job postings were up 15 percent year-over-year and are trending ahead of the moving three month average, CompTIA noted.

CompTIA chief research officer Tim Herbert described February’s numbers as a "mixed picture".

"Recent employer tech hiring and future hiring intent indicators remain steady, so a degree of reassurance," Herbert said.

Old-school techies in trouble

While there are some nice numbers above, Janco’s Janulaitis fears the impact of Federal Government job cuts initiated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is yet to be felt.

"A preliminary impact of DOGE is being felt as many contracts for IT Professionals have been put on hold and government IT pros do not have a clear picture of what the future holds for them," he noted.

Asked how DOGE cuts could affect the private sector, Janulaitis said that he expected unemployment rates to pop in coming months.

"The DOGE effort will add to the job market for legacy IT Pros," Janulaitis predicted in response to questions from The Register. "Few, if any, of the government IT Pros have experience with AI, Blockchain, and e-commerce. IT Pros will face competition from these individuals and in that sector of the IT Job Market, we believe that unemployment rates will rise."

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Janulaitis said fear of an economic recession, stoked by the Trump administration's economic policies and mixed messaging from the President himself, is likely to trigger additional job cuts.

"After that statement [about a possible recession], we are in the process of revising our forecast for IT Job Market growth. This may be the third year in a row where the IT Job Market shrinks," Janulaitis said.

AI is where the action is

One bright spot in the jobs market is AI.

Janco found small and medium-sized enterprises are looking for anyone with AI expertise and still want more security professionals and programmers.

CompTIA, meanwhile, reported that job listings mentioning AI skills more than doubled year-over-year in February, with dedicated AI roles jumping 79 percent in the same month. ®