Tech Job Market Findings - Jan 2026

01 Mar 2026 2 min readtechjobsresearch

I saw this post on Hacker News (link) where the author proclaims "Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions".

I'm no expert, but that sounded exagerrated to me so I wasted an hour of my Friday to dive into the public data for tech jobs. I was mostly curious what the overall health of the tech market looks like now along with overall trend over time.

Findings #

Using Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data across similar tech industries, I found that tech employment rose steadily from 2,730,100 workers in January 2016 to a peak of 3,820,600 in November 2022. That’s a gain of about 1.09 million jobs (+40%) over six years. The COVID downturn in mid-2020 was relatively shallow and short-lived for these sectors. Hiring then accelerated rapidly through 2021 and 2022 during the post-pandemic tech boom. Since the peak in late 2022, employment has pulled back slightly and flattened out. The most recent data point (January 2026) shows 3,681,200 workers, which is:

–139,400 jobs from the peak (–3.6%)

+951,100 jobs compared to January 2016 (+34.8%)

In other words, tech employment hasn’t collapsed. It grew aggressively for years, overshot during the 2021–2022 hiring surge, and is now sitting on a plateau slightly below the peak. Companies now are hiring fewer entry-level positions (less demand due to surplus of experienced labor) however experienced tech professionals are still needed across the board but you will have compeition w/ the employees who were part of mass layoffs.

The takeaway #

Hiring cooled after the boom, but the industry is still significantly larger than it was a decade ago w/ lots of job demand. The real shift appears to be who companies want to hire, not whether tech jobs exist.

Data Sources #

• Software Publishers (CES5051320001)

• Computer Systems Design (CES6054150001)

• Data Processing / Hosting (CES5051800001)

• Web Search / Info Services (CES5051900001)

• Public BLS Data API

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