Job creation in the technology sector saw mixed results throughout September, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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First, the good news for the tech sector: 2,900 news jobs were created in "Computer systems design and related services" from August through September, according to the report. Likewise, 1,900 new jobs were filled in "Other information services" -- defined by the BLS as online news syndicates, archives and Web search engines such as Google or Bing.
What's the bad news? Data processing, hosting and related services lost 2,400 jobs. The tech-related hardware manufacturing sector took a sizable hit, losing 5,500 jobs.
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While the BLS numbers can give us a broad overview of the sector, Michael Blackman, chief corporate development officer at professional staffing firm Kforce, said they aren't specific enough to show demand for those with a particular set of skills.
"It's very difficult to look at the BLS numbers and extrapolate down to specific skill set," said Blackman. "We're looking at low single-digit employment numbers as a practical matter in fields like Java, .net and medical coding. Demand [for employees with those skills] remains intact."
When asked if demand for people with those niche programming skills was high because of low supply, Blackman agreed that's the cause.
"Both [presidential] candidates don't know how right they are that the fundamental issue to advance the U.S. economy into a true knowledge-based economy is significant investment in education and worker retraining programs," said Blackman.
Matt Hunckler, founder of startup community Verge, said that tech startups are still a fast-growing part of the nation's economic engine.
"These companies may start small, but ambitious dreams can become big companies, and those big companies create a lot of new careers for others," said Hunckler. "Obviously, it takes a lot of hard work, but this potential to create profitable businesses has a lot of people making the leap to entrepreneurial opportunities."
You can view the BLS report for yourself right here.
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Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, kjekol
This story originally published on Mashable here.