By Chelsea Babin

In the first quarter of 2016 the general unemployment rate stood at 4.9% while the technology industry unemployment rate stood at a mere 2.4%. This consistently lower than average unemployment rate has been staying steadily below the general rate for several years now and, in 2016, these 5 developer trends are the main drivers behind the current IT economy’s success.

1. Responsive Design: Thanks to the ever increasing prevalence of mobile devices any website that can’t auto adjust to a smaller display is at a serious disadvantage. More companies are focusing on responsive design as a result of this and, with new tools emerging that make it easier to implement and test mobile layouts, these skills are becoming easier to find in technical professionals seeking new jobs.

2. Machine Learning: The robots aren’t quite capable of taking all of our jobs yet so, with the rise in machine learning capabilities becoming a trend at major companies like Facebook and Google, it’s easy to see why IT professionals with experience using A.I. tools are extremely in demand in 2016. Although it hasn’t yet seen widespread adoption, machine learning’s popularity will continue to increase over the next few years so companies with a lot of foresight and resources are snapping up any A.I. talent they can find ASAP!

3. High Rate of Voluntary Quits: For many IT professionals, even more than in 2015, 2016 has been or will be the year that they quit their job in search for high salaries and better benefits. In January and February of this year alone the average rate of voluntary quits stood at 558,000 per month. As companies clamor to add more IT talent to their teams and retain the talent they already have amongst a high quitting rate, salaries everywhere are increasing and benefits packages are expanding.

4. Hadoop vs Apache Spark: Big Data is still in the middle of its big moment and, as companies are looking for the best tools to use, Hadoop and Apache Spark are fighting to the death to prove that they’re superior. Any technical professional with experience in one is undoubtedly attempting to learn the other so they’ll be ready to go no matter which one comes out on top but, if you want to help your Big Data focused employees stay competitive, consider offering courses or tuition reimbursement for Hadoop and Apache Spark.

5. Containers: When it comes to flexibility and safety containers are the hot new trend in servers. Their functionality is pretty complex and requires some serious technical skill to run but, as their popularity grows over the course of the year, a lot more companies will start moving towards container technology.

The IT unemployment rate is staying steady and staying much lower than the unemployment rate in the general economy as it has been for years. However this years top 5 developer trends are driving it in a way they never have before. It helps to familiarize yourself with these because you’ll be able to better assess which potential IT employees your team needs and which IT professionals you’ll want to make sure to retain in the coming years.