The technology industry’s unemployment rate dipped in the third quarter of 2016, hitting 2.8 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the third quarter of 2015, the rate stood at 3.0 percent. The technology industry continues to outperform the overall U.S. labor market, where the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9 percent in the third quarter. As usual, some of the technology segments monitored by the BLS have experienced notable swings in their employment rates over the past twelve months. For example, network and systems administrators saw their unemployment rate dip from 5 percent in the third quarter of 2015 to 0.6 percent in the third quarter of this year. The unemployment rate for programmers, on the other hand, rose from 2.6 percent to 3.9 percent during the same period. Web developers, computer support specialists, computer systems analysts, software developers, and network architects all saw their respective unemployment rates go down year-over-year. Computer & information systems managers and information security analysts joined programmers as segments that have seen their rates rise. For more on voluntary quits and layoffs in the third quarter, download the Dice Tech Employment Snapshot (PDF), which also offers a range of nifty graphics, as well as a breakdown of historical data.
