Jobs ahoy! New report says tech sector is growing

If you keep up with the IT employment recaps posted each month by GoCertify's Ed Tittel, then you already know that the story of 2014 when it come to IT job growth has been a long string of mixed messages. There have been good signs, bad signs and in-between signs. The only thing that seems to be consistently true is that some people in IT have jobs, while others are out of work.

A new report from CompTIA's TechAmerica Foundation sends some of the same uncertain signals, but does indicate that, if nothing else, 2014 has been slightly better than 2013. TechAmerica Foundation compiled its report, which is available online, using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Survey (our own Ed Tittel also relies on BLS reports to read the job growth and job loss tea leaves).

The TechAmerica number-crunching reveals that, as of June, there were 6.3 million people working at IT jobs in the United States. Over the first six months of the year, the IT sector grew by 119,000 jobs, which is ever-so-slightly better than the job growth that occurred over the same period last year.

A sizeable chunk of the growth in 2014 was accounted for by two categories. Jobs in R&D, testing and engineering services grew by more than 54,000, while jobs in IT services grew by more than 36,000. Also logging notable gains were the telecommunications (18,700), software (6,000) and tech manufacturing (3,900) categories.

TechAmerica looked back over an 18-month period, from January 2013 to June 2014, in compiling its research. Over that length of time, some months posted sizeable job gains, while others saw jobs lost. The biggest gains over the entire period came in June earler this year, when tech employment grew by 42,000 jobs. Two notable IT employment crashes occurred, with 43,100 jobs lost in September 2013, and an additional 35,200 going out the door earlier this year in January.