Technology workers are in demand at companies outside the traditional tech sector — and the emergence of artificial intelligence is a big reason why, according to a new report.
CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, released its 11th annual Scoring Tech Talent report.
For the first time in the report’s history, industries outside the tech sector hired the majority of tech workers. More companies are incorporating AI into their businesses, which seems to be fueling much of the hiring.
“It’s been a very high-growth sector that we feel is going to continue to drive new tech talent hiring for sure,” Colin Yasukochi, lead author of the report, said.
AI-related job postings went from about 9% of tech job postings in late 2019 to over 14% today.
Overall, tech employment grew by 3.6% in 2023, down from 7.3% in 2022.
The high-tech industry added 28,978 jobs last year, a growth rate of just 1.2% from 2022. But high-tech companies still account for nearly 2.5 million of the country’s 6 million tech jobs.
Companies outside the tech sector grew their tech workforces at a faster pace last year.
Professional and business services companies added the most tech talent jobs last year (49,760), followed by the transportation, warehousing and wholesale sector (45,390).
The transportation, warehousing and wholesale sector grew its tech workforce by over 18% last year, for example.
Yasukochi, the executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, said the areas of growth were dominated by software engineers, including most people hired to work on AI projects.
“Now, I’ll tell you that defining what an artificial intelligence tech worker is isn’t easy, because it can be all over the map,” Yasukochi said. “But we certainly know that the majority of them … would fall into that particular category. And of the 213,000 tech talent jobs that were created last year in the U.S., 72% were software engineers. So, AI is a massive driver there.”
Companies outside the tech industry also seem to be snatching up tech workers after previously being crowded out by tech companies that were willing to pay more in a demanding market.
CBRE includes over 20 occupations in its analysis of tech talent. This essentially includes anyone with computer-focused or information technology jobs, whether on the software or hardware side.
CBRE looks at 75 North American markets and ranks the top 50 tech markets based on the size and concentration of their tech workforces, growth profiles, wages, innovation infrastructure, supply of newly graduated tech labor and more.
The breakdown weighs factors from both an employer’s perspective and a worker’s perspective, Yasukochi said.
The established tech hubs of San Francisco and Seattle have been and remain the top two tech talent markets in CBRE’s report.
New York, Toronto, Austin, the District of Columbia, Boston, Denver, Dallas and Ottawa make up the rest of this year’s top 10.
Yasukochi said the top 15 or so markets have consistently shown up high on their annual reports.
Canadian cities Toronto and Ottawa have moved up, he said. So has Austin.
Raleigh-Durham, San Diego, Detroit, Houston, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Calgary and South Florida improved their ranks the most, according to CBRE.
Yasukochi said AI offers the same potential for dramatic changes to livelihoods and everyday lives previously brought on by personal computers and mobile applications.
The tech industry likes to talk about “creative destruction,” he said.
With AI, he expects some jobs will be enhanced, some will be created and some will become obsolete.
“Adapting AI into your work to make you more efficient and productive is probably going to be the biggest benefit to workers going forward,” he said.
Gallup previously found 22% of workers were concerned their job would become obsolete, up from the 15% who held that fear two years earlier — before OpenAI’s ChatGPT ushered in a breakout year for generative AI.
Gallup found that nearly three-quarters of Fortune 500 human resource leaders expect AI to replace jobs at their companies in the next three years.
Molly Kinder, a fellow at Brookings Metro and an expert on how innovations can impact the labor market, previously told The National Desk that AI is a “disruptive tool.”
“It’s both going to be a tool that improves work for many people, but there’s also a lot of risk of disruptions that will leave workers either with skills that are no longer relevant or potentially even in jobs that have now become obsolete,” she said.
Kinder said she’s not surprised folks are worried, but she also said the future might not be as bleak as some fear.
Anton Dahbura, an AI expert and the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, previously said people have been afraid that advancements in technology would leave them out of work “since the dawn of the Industrial Age,” if not earlier.
Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.
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