New data shows that the unemployment rate for tech occupations is at a two-year low—and the Dallas market seems to be a large contributor to that.

In a new Tech Jobs Report from CompTIA, the nonprofit association that studies the IT industry and workforce, it was revealed that the Dallas metro market recorded the largest month-over-month gain (plus 2,960) in tech jobs postings from June to July.

It was followed by New York (+2,058), Los Angeles (+1,906), Chicago (+1,680), and San Francisco (+1,613).

The report offers a monthly snapshot of IT employment trends at both an occupational and industry level. CompTIA aims to provide context around historical trending and supplementary data analysis to give insight into emerging technology job roles, hiring activity in state and metro areas, and trending skills.

Its latest release showed that Dallas fares well in tech—and that opportunities are arising outside of Silicon Valley.

How Dallas stacks up

In addition to having the largest month-over-month gain in tech jobs postings, Dallas was high in the ranks for a number of categories.

When it comes to metropolitan areas with the strongest demand for tech workers, Dallas came second only to New York with 17,453 tech job postings total. New York had 21,858 in July. Washington DC (16,391), Los Angeles (13,650), and Chicago (12,287) trailed.

That was a large contributor to the state’s overall status on the report.

Texas came in at the top for tech job postings added with a 4,173 gain. Behind it was California, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey.

And, like Dallas, Texas came in second for total tech job postings with 33,834 in July versus California’s 44,891. Texas was also the second state behind California for both remote tech job postings and AI job postings.

On the metro area list, Dallas came in eighth for AI job postings.

The top employers on CompTIA’s report all have a large presence in Dallas. The top five are: Deloitte, Humana, Accenture, Amazon, and Anthem Blue Cross.

Tech unemployment is low

According to CompTIA, in July, the unemployment rate for occupations in information technology reached a two-year low at a 1.5 percent rate. That comes at a time when the country is still beginning its economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the lowest level since August 2019, CompTIA reports; it’s also close to the historic low of 1.3 percent.

July saw a strong hiring month, specifically from technology sector companies and employers looking to increase their staffing with tech talent.

Overall, CompTIA’s report shows that tech sector companies added 10,700 positions in July, with IT job postings for future hiring surpassing 318,500. That’s up more than 7,200 from June. Plus, tech occupations throughout the U.S. economy expanded by 178,000.

The top five industries that are posting tech jobs are professional, scientific, and technical services; finance and insurance, manufacturing, information, and retail trade, CompTIA notes. Companies are primarily adding workers in IT services and custom software development, information services, and data processing, hosting, and related services.

“Beyond the headline figures, the underlying data tells a growth story of diverse hiring across tech occupation categories, industry sectors, employer types and locations,“ Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA, said in a news release. “It’s not one overriding factor, but a combination of factors contributing to tech employment growth.”   

You can dive into CompTIA’s full tech jobs report here.

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