By Pino Vallejo

Brought to you by The WHIR

Job growth in the U.S. IT sector continued with a net gain of 10,700 jobs in January, 8 percent higher than the 9,900 added in December, according to statistics from the Economic Situation Report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The growth was uneven, however, with 12,500 computer systems design jobs added, while 2,800 jobs were lost in computer electronic manufacturing. Both of those numbers were up substantially from December, when 6,200 computer systems design jobs were gained, and 1,100 jobs were lost in the manufacturing subsector.

“The IT industry, as it exists across several separate sectors, has been growing steadily except the manufacturing sector, which routinely experiences job losses,” said Jay Rollins, owner of ITJobsWeb.com.

Data processing and hosting employment increased by 1,200 jobs, following an increase of 2,600 jobs in December. Data processing and hosting have accounted for 5,800 new jobs in the US over the past 12 months.

Two hundred jobs were lost in management and technical consulting, after a gain of 2,200 in December, but the subsector has added the second most jobs (76,500) over the past 12 months to computer systems design (92,000).  Computer manufacturing employment has decreased by 17,700 jobs in that time.

The IT industry employs 4,789,300 Americans across all subsectors.

Endurance International Group informed employees it will lay off 440 BlueHost employees in January, and has since announced both more cuts and hiring that add up to a net gain for the company so far in 2017.  Layoffs stemming from the merger between Dell and EMC Inc. also began in January.

Industry group FWD.us has pushed for immigration reform to help deal with a shortage of engineering talent, and the tech industry has reacted largely with dismay and protest to executive orders on immigration from President Donald Trump that could harm the labor supply.

A report on the global cybersecurity skills gap put out by Indeed in January showed a persistent shortage of skilled IT security workers in the US and other countries, despite a full supply of applicants for ethical hacker and CISO positions.