The number of IT jobs only grew 0.1% sequentially last month to 5,305,800, according to TechServe Alliance, the national trade association of the IT & Engineering Staffing and Solutions industry.  On a year-over-year basis, IT employment grew by 2.9% since July 2016 adding 147,100 IT workers.

Engineering employment also increased by 0.1 percent sequentially to 2,568,200.  On a year-over-year basis, engineering jobs increased by 1.2% since July 2016 or 30,600 engineering workers.

"For the past three months, the rate of IT job growth has been sluggish. While it still represents an increase in IT employment, the rate of growth has generally been on a downward trajectory for the past year. Similarly, the rate of engineering job growth decelerated after posting stronger June numbers," stated Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. "Given the extremely low unemployment rates in many high-demand IT and engineering skill sets, the shortage of supply is clearly impeding the growth rate of the U.S. technical workforce. More restrictive immigration policies being proposed by some policymakers would only further exacerbate this trend," added Roberts.

IT and engineering jobs are found in virtually every sector and industry in varying degrees. The following table presents information about the total number of jobs in certain sectors that provide a significant amount of employment for IT and engineering professionals.