Looking at the national unemployment rate as published by the BLS for the last 19 months (August 2022 - February 2024), there is a upward trend in the national unemployment rate. When the next report is released, for March 2024, we believe that trend will continue.
Based on preliminary, there is a possibility that the unemployment number could hit 4%.
IT unemployment rate is higher than the national rate
Over the past several months the unemployment rate for IT Professionals has been a bright spot in the overall job market. That however has not been the case for the past few months.
Long Term Trend - IT Job Market versus state by state unemployment rate
Employment of IT professionals traditionally is tied to the national unemployment rates. In our research we have found that the number of IT jobs created or lost is tied to the number of states that are at full employment (3.0% or less) versus those with high unemployment rates (5.0% or higher). In December there was one state (Nevada 5.2%) that had a high unemployment rate.
State by state unemployment rates
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