The Labor Department reported this morning that the U.S. economy delivered only modest job growth in September while wages picked up. However, technology employment continues to grow. Jobs in cutting edge fields such as AI, robotics, machine learning, vision systems and other state of the art engineering, scientific, R&D, IT and manufacturing sectors continue to add a lot of jobs with demand far outpacing supply for many skilled workers!
Technology Jobs Continuing To Grow!
As proof that R&D, engineering, scientific, technical, IT and advanced manufacturing fields continue to add new jobs, Forbes recently listed a top ten list of IT, engineering and technical jobs for 2016 and the future. Additionally, technology continues to grow adding a lot of rewarding engineering jobs with a wide range of engineers benefitting.
Further proof comes from companies like GE that has recently boosted pay to land technical talent. For example, GE is now paying on average $138,000 for senior software engineers! This is confirmed by what my recruitment team has found anecdotally over the past eight months.
Overall Employment And Wage Growth Remains Stagnant
The Labor Department reported Friday that non farm jobs grew by only a seasonally adjusted 156,000 jobs in September, which was the smallest gain since May. Additionally, they said that the unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, increased a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0%.
There were some positive signs. For example, the overall labor force grew quickly as discouraged Americans came off the sidelines and re-entered the job search. However, many economists expected 170,000 new jobs and a 4.9% unemployment rate.
The government also revised figures for prior months, though the overall outlook didn’t change much. The economy added 167,000 jobs in August, up from the previously reported 151,000 jobs. It created 252,000 jobs in July, instead of 275,000.
Meanwhile, growth in workers’ wages accelerated last month. Private-sector workers earned, on average, $25.79 an hour in September, up 6 cents, or 0.2%, from a month earlier. The average paycheck grew 2.6% over the past year.
The report provides one of the final major snapshots of the economy before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Steady job growth has boosted the approval rating of President Barack Obama and has been cited by Hillary Clinton as she urges voters to keep Democrats in control of the White House. Her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, has pointed to high underemployment and modest economic gains among blue-collar workers in arguing for change.
The labor-force participation rate—the share of the overall population in the labor force—stood at 62.9% in September, up a tenth of a percentage point from August and a half-point from a year earlier. It is still hovering near the lowest level since the late 1970s, in part due to the retirement of baby boomers but also because many working-age Americans have given up the job search.
Even with the latest progress, millions of Americans are underemployed. The share of residents who are jobless, involuntarily stuck in part-time work or too discouraged to look for a job stood at 9.7% last month, unchanged from August, but down from 10% a year earlier.
The average workweek last month increased a tenth of an hour to 34.4 hours.
Our Next President Needs To Focus On Cutting Edge Technology
The future of our economy and jobs creation rests upon our next president concentrating on technology. The latest scientific breakthroughs in AI (Artificial Intelligence), robotics, vision systems and other cutting edge scientific, engineering, technical, IT and R&D fields will drive the U.S. back to prominence and in turn create a lot of high paying jobs!
Several examples of promising technology fields include scientists unveiling the 1st tethers hopping robots and huge AI investments like those already being invested in by private sector companies like Google both internally and through increasing acquisitions of AI and cutting edge technology companies.
Additionally, proof comes now from the BLS in their future predictions for engineering employment for 2024 and beyond. As a result, our next U.S. president must value scientific research (R&D) and technology investment to grow the U.S. economy!
