CompTIA Releases New U.S. IT Jobs Statistics

IT dude checking his laptop

There are more than 320 million people who live and work in the United States. Not all of them work, of course, what with kids and retirees being out of the picture entirely, and various disadvantaged groups finding themselves on the outside of the U.S. workforce looking in. It might surprise you to learn, however, that nearly half of all Americans are considered to be eligible for employment, with 148.2 million actually punching someone's clock.

 

That's the context for a report released earlier this week by IT industry association CompTIA, which finds that there are nearly 6.5 million workers in IT jobs across the United States. That's about 4.4 percent of the total workforce, so a full-time job in IT is actually considerably rarer than many might have supposed. (If you're one of the lucky ones, then thank your lucky stars ... and go get another certification, because you don't want to fall out of step and wind up somewhere less ideal.)

 

Dubbed Cyberstates 2015: The Definitive State-by-State Analysis of The U.S. Tech Industry, CompTIA's exhaustive breakdown finds that the IT sector posted a net gain of 129,600 jobs in 2013 and 2014, despite not always getting a ton of help from tech employers themselves. Nearly all of those new jobs were in either IT services (63,300 new jobs) or research/testing/engineering (50,700 new jobs).

 

Not surprisingly, the states with the largest IT employment headcounts are California, Texas and New York. Those aren't necessarily the best places, however, to find a job in IT. The five states with the highest per capita number of IT jobs are Massachussetts (where 9.8 percent of private sector jobs are in IT), Virginia (9.4 percent), Colorado (9.2 percent), Maryland (8.6 percent) and Washington (8.4 percent — which would probably drop to 1 or 2 percent if Microsoft ever moved away).

 

CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux said in a statement to press that the Cyberstates 2015 report shows that IT is a vital driver of the U.S. economy. "The tech industry accounts for 7.1 percent of the overall U.S. GDP and 11.4 percent of the total U.S. private sector payroll," Thibodeaux said "With annual average wages that are more than double that of the private sector, we should be doing all we can to encourage the growth and vitality of our nation's tech industry."

 

In all, 38 states posted a net gain in total number of IT jobs across 2013 and 2014. The largest total number of jobs added was in California (which pumped up its tech workforce by more than 32,900 new IT jobs), Texas (more than 20,000 new jobs), Florida (more than 12,500 new jobs), Massachussetts (more than 8,700 new jobs) and Michigan (more than 8,000 new jobs).

 

You can delve into all of the glorious details immediately if you're a CompTIA member, or take a moment and become a registered user.

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GoCertify's mission is to help both students and working professionals get IT certifications. GoCertify was founded in 1998 by Anne Martinez.