Tech companies are known for their rapid growth, but that speed relies on finding the right people even more so than in other industries. For tech companies, especially startups, it’s not about building a better factory or finding cheaper materials, it’s all about finding the best people to move things along.
Both in Phoenix and across the country, tech is booming with tens of thousands of jobs posted in all kinds of sub-specialties. In the Phoenix metro area, there were more than 21,000 jobs open in the tech sector at the end of the second quarter, according to a CompTIA analysis of Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights data.
Valley employers posted an additional 4,394 tech jobs from the first quarter of the year to the second, representing a 26% increase. The boost in Phoenix job postings was among the largest in the country, both in terms of percent gained and of sheer volume.
CompTIA’s analysis also found that accounting and consulting firm Deloitte, which has a massive delivery center in Gilbert, had more than 300 open Arizona positions in June. Wells Fargo had more than 260 jobs posted last month, while Dublin, Ireland-based Accenture was seeking more than 150 people in the Valley.
This glut of tech job openings is part of the larger recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands in the U.S., put many people out of work and inspired others to seek new careers.
In fact, last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 9.2 million job openings in the country at the end of May, which is far and away the most openings the Bureau has recorded in the past twenty years.
BLS clocked the national unemployment rate at 5.9% at the start of July, but that rate is slightly higher in the Valley with unemployment at 6.2%.
Startup scene
Job openings are abundant not just at large, established tech companies but at startups as well.
Gregslist is a website that started back in 2016 with the intent of simply listing all the software companies in Arizona. The first iteration counted less than 200, but since then the site has swelled to list 741 Arizona software companies and it has also expanded into other cities.
Last year Gregslist started listing job openings as a new feature and the data offers a glimpse into the hiring problems local founders are facing.
In November there were 258 jobs posted on Gregslist Phoenix and that figure has since jumped to 858 openings posted on the site.
Greg Head, founder of Gregslist and CEO of Scaling Point consultancy, said the speed of change in the market has been remarkable.
“The surprise is the whiplash of the economy,” he said. “In six months we went from, most companies didn't have many jobs, to the funded companies having 30 to 40 job openings.”
Venture capital has been pouring into startups in the past year, with national investment on track to break the records set in 2020. In Arizona startups like Lessen, Trainual, Virtuous and Qwick are all looking to hire scores of people after recent funding rounds.
Head said that when startups raise money it’s primarily used to hire people, so it’s good to see companies grow but their expansion will likely be tempered by drawn-out hiring searches.
“Tech founders are very acutely aware of the hiring problems right now, it got very difficult, very fast to find real talent,” he said.
Head called the situation a "war for talent" and drew a comparison to the housing market in Arizona: High demand and low supply means price increases. He said founders are having to pay a premium for the best candidates and expand benefit packages to compete in such a crowed market.
