From the beginning of the year to June 1, job postings on tech-focused Dice.com rose 26 percent to 69,957, with strong gains in three eastern cities. Postings for jobs in the Philadelphia area jumped 41 percent to 2,888, listings for jobs in the New York region climbed 38 percent to 8,644, and those for positions in Boston and its suburbs rose 36 percent to 2,257.
Although job growth was strong on the East Coast, some western metropolitan areas ranked high in terms of total job postings, according to the report. The New York area was tops in terms of job listings on Dice.com, followed by the Washington, D.C., region with 7,592 postings. Silicon Valley ranked third with 6,355 postings, the Los Angeles region was fourth with 4,480 and the Chicago area fifth with 2,991.
When it comes to programming skills, .NET is hot but Perl is not, according to the report. .NET requests rose 52 percent, HTML postings climbed 38 percent and XML demand increased 37 percent, Dice said, but the demand for tech professionals with Perl experience has declined 12 percent since the beginning of the year.
Dice said a single job posting may reflect more than one skill and location.
The report adds to mixed news about job scene for techies. A study this month from staffing firm Robert Half Technology found that U.S. technology workers may be looking at a better job market in the coming months. A separate study released earlier this year indicated that the U.S. tech industry may have turned a corner last year when it comes to employment woes. In addition, technology professionals have reason to be cautiously optimistic about jobs at start-up companies.
On the other hand, computer pros face the threat of increased automation and the prospect of their jobs being shifted offshore.
In addition, a gauge of IT workers' confidence in the job market dropped in May. The average number of unemployed workers in nine high-tech categories fell by 64,000 last year but remained close to 150,000, according to the Labor Department. And in the first three months of this year, technology companies slashed nearly 60,000 U.S. jobs--twice the number trimmed in the same period last year.
