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In the event you’re on the lookout for a job in IT, chances are high good that it’s an AI-related job, in response to information from the College of Maryland and LinkUp, which discovered that the variety of AI jobs has elevated dramatically because the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 whereas the general job market–and the IT job market specifically–have softened.
Researchers from the College of Maryland Robert H. Smith College of Enterprise labored with LinkUp to pour over job postings to detect tendencies that is likely to be helpful for employers and staff alike. They shared the outcomes of their collaboration in a visible method by way of UMD-LinkUp AI Maps, which they claimed was the primary device for mapping the creation and distribution of jobs throughout the US.
The quick story of what they discovered is that there was an enormous uptick in AI-related jobs because the fall of 2022, whereas on the identical time the variety of IT associated jobs has dropped. Particularly, the researchers discovered that the variety of AI job postings grew by 68% from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the fourth quarter of 2024, to a complete of 49,577 jobs throughout the US. On the identical time, the variety of IT jobs decreased by 27% to 354,070 jobs throughout the identical time interval.
The researchers name this the “ChatGPT Impact.” Apparently, OpenAI launched ChatGPT throughout a nadir in AI jobs, in response to information on the LinkUp AI Maps website. Solely 7,025 AI jobs have been posted in December 2022, in comparison with 26,430 in October 2021. Employers had almost 25,000 open AI jobs as lately as March 2022 earlier than they plummeted by greater than two-thirds by the tip of the 12 months.
What’s extra, regardless of the ChatGPT Impact, we now have but to achieve these frothy October 2021 heights. The newest month for AI jobs, April 2025, exhibits that employers posted adverts for 23,208 AI jobs that month.
Nearly all of AI jobs are concentrated in 5 industries (Picture supply: by way of UMD-LinkUp AI Maps)
That could be as a result of general decline within the job market. From the fourth quarter of 2022 to the fourth quarter of 2024, the variety of all job postings declined by 17%. The unemployment price has additionally elevated. It went from a historic low of three.5% in September 2022 to 4.3% in July 2024. The present unemployment price is 4.2%.
Whereas the variety of AI jobs–which the researchers outline as a job that requires AI abilities–continues to be a small fraction of the general variety of IT jobs, the ratio of AI jobs to general IT jobs has greater than doubled. It went from 8.3% of all jobs in late 2022 to 19.2% over the roles in late 2024, in response to the researchers.
The researchers additionally discovered that almost the entire AI jobs listings exist in one in all 5 sectors: Skilled, scientific, and technical companies; data; manufacturing; finance and insurance coverage; and retail commerce. These “Huge 5” industries accounted for 89% of the AI jobs, whereas accounting for under about 47% of all jobs. By comparability, well being care and social help and meals companies account for nearly 28% of all jobs, however solely had 1.5% of AI jobs.
One of many causes for this modification is that corporations in less-technically superior sectors have basically outsourced a lot of their AI work to companies corporations. Accenture, Deloitte, EY, PwC, Booz Allen and their friends belong to the skilled, scientific, and technical companies sector, the researchers say within the group’s second white paper, “Diffusion of AI Jobs Throughout Financial Sectors.”
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