The Tech Market in a Nut Shell

Tech Sector Employment Trends & Numbers

Employment

The U.S. tech industry totaled 6.5 million employees at the end of 2014 according to CompTIA’s Cyberstates report. The top five states by tech industry employment are: California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts.

Payroll / GDP

The tech industry’s impact on the U.S. GDP is 7.1%. Tech salaries tend to be double or more that of the average private sector worker. That adds up! Tech companies accounted for 20% of California’s private sector payroll, and 38% of U.S. states had more than 10% of their payroll coming from the tech industry.

Growth

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to exceed $3.6 trillion according to Gartner ($3.7 trillion according to IDC) in 2015. Gartner also forecasts global growth rate at 3.1% this year (CompTIA’s consensus forecast projects 5.0% growth).

Driven by Small Business

There are approximately 360,000 companies in the tech industry in the U.S. Only 0.3% of IT companies have 500+ employees, the 99.7% of the industry remaining fall under the umbrella of SMB: 2% are medium-sized at 100-499 employees, 15.4% are small-sized at 10-99 employees, and the bulk of companies at 82.4% are micro-sized with 1-9 employees.

Full-On Tech Employment

Tech unemployment is at the lowest since June 2008, at only 1.9% in April (the general unemployment rate is at 5.4%). This continuing decline in unemployment and the increased hiring over the last year makes the tech job market an ever-increasing competitive landscape.

Tech Hiring is a Challenge

68% of IT firms describe technical position hiring as challenging as the demand for skilled tech pros is high and the supply is squeezed. This is pushing compensation packages up, and creating competition to create the best culture, work environment, reputation, and perks of tech companies.

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The Tech Market in a Nut Shell – Trends & Numbers