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iCIMS Insights August Workforce Report: Taking the temperature on tech roles

August 23, 2024
5 min read
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As temperatures reach their peak this month, the job market is also heating up. Is a labor market meltdown in our future? Our August Workforce Report reviews:

  • The rise in unemployment
  • A deep dive into tech jobs
  • Job seekers’ reaction to AI roles

 

Unemployment heats up

August 2024 Workforce Report, platform indicators

Before transitioning to the topic of tech, let’s look at the job market at large. The biggest news is that unemployment rose in July. It held steady at just under 4% over the last two years. But last month, the unemployment rate grew from 4.1% to 4.3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With a small surge in unemployment, it’s no surprise that applications rose, too. Applications crept up 10% since June. They’re also up 10% since the start of last year.

What does this say about employers? Our data — an aggregate of all jobs — shows that employers are still active in the job market. While politicians, economists and other leaders are drawing focus to a labor market that’s heating up, the market itself shows no signs of an outright meltdown.

 

Tech jobs command applicant attention

August 2024 Workforce Report, tech jobs platform indicators

We’re diving deep into tech jobs in this month’s report. To be clear, we’re not discussing the tech industry itself. We’re analyzing tech-related positions across all sectors: software engineers at healthcare companies; data scientists at financial firms; web developers at retail brands.

These jobs have long been desirable, and the allure has kept up despite troubling trends. Fifty-eight percent of workers say that economic uncertainty and the rise of AI in the workplace, for example, has not diminished their desire to nab a tech job.

There are a few types of tech jobs that are receiving outsized attention from job seekers. Applications for information security analysts, for instance, rocketed 41% between July 2023 and July 2024. Other roles with a significant uptick in interest include software and web developers.

August 2024 Workforce Report, tech job applications and hires by job title

Curiously, employer and job seeker demand do not always align. Applications for computer programmers increased by 29% in the last year. But hires for those roles fell — by a whopping 19%.

 

Sky-high APO for tech roles

August 2024 Workforce Report, tech job applicants per opening

Considering job seekers’ fascination with tech roles, it follows that applicants per opening (APO) is high in those positions.

It appears that the obsession over tech positions is getting stronger — APO jumped 36% in one year for tech roles. Those positions receive double the number of applicants than those in the overall market, on average.

Amazingly, the talent teams managing tech roles are keeping up with the influx of applications. Time to fill in July was 47 days — two days faster than July 2023.

 

Tech applicants’ defining characteristic? Youth.

Who are these applicants flooding the tech job market? iCIMS data shows the vast majority of them are quite young. In fact, 80% of applicants for tech jobs are younger than 35. Nearly two-thirds are under 25.

Employers aren’t the only ones to have noticed the interest in tech jobs. Unfortunately, scammers have been posing as recruiters to steal personal information from eager applicants. According to iCIMS data, two-thirds of Gen Z workers said they are extremely concerned about this trend — a higher representation than even baby boomers (49%).

For more details on tech applicants’ origin stories — including where they come from and the industries they gravitate toward — download the iCIMS Insights August Workforce Report.

 

Applicants shrug in the face of AI

Job seekers looking for tech opportunities seem undaunted by the arrival of AI in the workplace.

That attitude may be rooted in the slow-growing demand for talent specializing in AI. iCIMS data revealed that over a quarter of respondents have applied to roles that involve building AI or that feature the technology significantly. Sixty-one percent said their company was not recruiting for roles that required AI skills.

Interestingly, younger workers appear to be more interested in AI than their older counterparts. While just 19% of millennials have applied to jobs that involve building AI in the last six months, 31% of Gen Zers have done so in the same timeframe.

 

Want more valuable talent insights?

Download the full August Workforce Report.

Download the iCIMS Insights July 2024 Workforce Report

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About the author

Rhea Moss

Rhea Moss is director of customer experience and data insights at iCIMS. She oversees the iCIMS Insights program, which aggregates and anonymizes the billions of data points iCIMS’ software processes per year and transforms them into actionable insights to help drive business and hiring strategies. Previously, Rhea was head of products at prescriptive data, and served as product and program managers at MongoDB and Thomson Reuters.

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