IT hiring jumps in January

The IEEE-USA recently said the unemployment rate for software engineers fell from 4.7% to 4.1% from the third to the fourth 2009 quarter, while the total pool of employed software engineers fell from 970,000 to 952,000, a nearly 2% decline.

It attributed the decline to decisions by engineers to leave the field because of retirement, or to switch professions.

The IEEE said 82,000 software engineering jobs and 78,000 positions for computer scientists and systems analysts disappeared between 2008 and 2009.

"Putting engineers and computer professionals back to work will help power the U.S. economy," said Evelyn H. Hirt, who became the IEEE-USA's president in January. "They will foster technological breakthroughs and engineering solutions to meet the great challenges facing our country and help create opportunities throughout the workforce," she said in a statement.

Another barometer of tech demand are the number of jobs posted on Dice, a technology jobs board. There were nearly 58,000 jobs posted today; as of Jan. 4, it had nearly 49,000 jobs posted.