Job market opens new career options
The labor market is in flux bringing changing expectations for workers and employers.
This is the conclusion of research from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a global voice and advocate for the $5 trillion global information technology. Its new report
“Job Seeker Trends” finds that approximately 30% of survey respondents reported pursuing a new job (or career change) in the past few months. It represents a slight uptick from the CompTIA’s previous survey of job hunters conducted six months ago.
Here are the top occupations of interest among job hunters:
1. Sales, marketing, retail, real estate or related.
2. Healthcare, medical or related.
3. Hospitality, food, travel, tourism or related.
4. Information technology (IT) or related.
5. Business, financial, accounting, analyst, operations or related.
“These findings confirm there is also a great resetting of expectations underway as workers and employers seek better models for reskilling, talent matching and career navigation,” said
Todd Thibodeaux, CompTIA president and CEO. “We continue to see some of the most interesting experimentation in the tech workforce space with a wide range of efforts to meet the growing demand for tech talent.”
Among current job seekers 61% said they have looked at new opportunities in a different career field and 63% have searched for jobs within their current or most recent career field. The findings are consistent across gender, age and education demographics.
Interest in tech careers grows while it wanes for other fields. The survey data suggests the IT occupation category experienced the highest rate of positive change in job seekers’ interest (+7 percentage points) vs. the June 2021 research wave.
Other growth categories that stand out include the business, financial, accounting, analyst or operations category (+4 points) and the education, teaching or instruction category (+4 points).
A majority of job seekers expects to need additional training when transitioning into a new career field, though a relatively small subset reported they have taken a training class or other instruction (19%). Among planned activities reported by job seekers, 60% intend to take an online training course, 50% said they’ll do selfstudy and 41% reported interest in an in-person training course.
“Offering employees opportunities to develop new skills and identifying pathways to advancement have always been best practices, but in today’s hiring environment they are paramount,” Thibodeaux said. “Supporting the career aspirations of employees is the best way to unlock their future potential. Failing to do so is a sure way to motivate them to look at other employment options.”
To see the full report, visit online at www.comptia.org/content/research/job-seekertrends/.
Interest in tech careers grows while it wanes for other fields. The survey data suggests the IT occupation category experienced the highest rate of positive change in job seekers’ interest (+7 percentage points) vs. the June 2021 research wave.