Some 17,300 tech sector jobs were cut last month, but the sector remains up by more than 200,000 positions so far this year.

That’s according to CompTIA‘s review of the latest Employment Situation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. IT occupations in all sectors of the economy declined last month by an estimated 134,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate for IT occupations is 4.4%, less than half of the national unemployment rate of 10.2%. And until last month, tech sector employment has increased most months despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

CompTIA’s Tim Herbert

“After several months of tech job gains exceeding expectations in a very difficult economic environment, a pause in tech hiring was not unexpected,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA‘s executive vice president for research and market intelligence.

Year to date, there have been five months of job gains and two months of job losses. In June, the tech sector lost 33,800 jobs.

U.S. employer job postings for IT occupations declined in July, but still totaled more than 235,000 for the month. The top five job roles companies were looking to fill were:

California, Texas, Virginia, New York and North Carolina had the highest numbers of IT job postings last month. And Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, Maine and North Dakota recorded the highest month-over-month increase in job postings. However, the gains were modest.

Among specific industries, professional, scientific and technical services (39,956), finance and insurance (18,756), manufacturing (17,473), information (11,095) and retail trade (7,042) had the highest numbers of postings for IT positions.