ITWF Progress Report 3:
Results from March 2002 CPS Data – IT Characteristics

This revision: 25 February 2003

Based on the 2002 CPS data, I estimate the IT workforce at 2,928,536 people, 67.9% of whom are males. Along racial lines, 77.5% of all IT workers are white with 8.3% black and 13.2% Asian. The IT workforce has grown by 692,746 people since 1990, which represents an increase of 31%. The economic recession and particular problems in the high-tech industry are reflected, however, in the loss of 63,445 jobs in the single year from 2001-2002. This is a 2.1% reduction in the size of the workforce – the most significant reduction in employment levels since the recession in the early 1990s. Programmers saw the most substantial loss, with 15% fewer in 2002 than in 2001.

Clearly, the dominant force for growth within the IT workforce over the 1990-2002 period has been the higher-level analyst positions, which is consistent with other studies.[1] Note that the high-growth occupation is also about 72% male (as of 2002). All other IT occupations have either declined or remained relatively stable in terms of total employment over the period.

With this characterization of the IT workforce demographics, we can then slice the non-IT occupations from the CPS data along the age/education

The following presents the breakdown using 2002 data of male/female shares of each IT occupation.

Notes

[1] See the National Research Council findings in Building a Workforce for the Information Economy (2001).

About the author

Brandon Dupont is a Graduate Student, University of Kansas Department of Economics.