Boston tech employment edged upward in 2022 despite layoffs

Employment in Boston's tech sector increased slightly in 2022, despite high-profile layoffs at companies including Whoop, Wayfair, and HubSpot.Jim Davis/Globe Staff, David L. Ryan/Globe Staff, Lane Turner/Globe Staff

Despite a wave of layoffs at technology companies large and small, the number of people in the Boston area employed in the industry rose by 1 percent in 2022.

More than 272,500 people in the area worked in tech jobs, nonprofit tech industry group CompTIA said in its recently released annual report. The figure included technical and nontechnical people working at tech companies, as well as technical professionals at other companies.

The slight growth in 2022 came even as higher interest rates and the slowing economy upended tech stock prices and forced many companies to lay off workers. In the Boston area, tech giants Amazon and Meta cut jobs alongside smaller companies such as Snyk, Desktop Metal, and Whoop.

Though the job cuts have continued in 2023 — including significant trims at Google, Wayfair, and HubSpot — CompTIA forecast tech-related employment in the Boston area would grow 2 percent this year.

Diversity of the workforce remained a challenge for local tech companies in 2022. According to the report, only 4 percent of Boston-area tech workers were Black, compared with 8 percent of the overall workforce; 4 percent were Hispanic, versus 10 percent of the workforce. And one-quarter of tech workers were women, compared with half of the overall workforce.

Boston’s tech employment represented almost 10 percent of all jobs in the region and ranked 8th in the country for total tech employment in metropolitan areas. Seattle was just ahead of Boston with more than 289,000 jobs, and Chicago was just behind with about 245,000 tech workers. New York City ranked first overall with almost 560,000 tech jobs, and Los Angeles ranked second with almost 386,000.

Nationwide, 9.2 million people worked in the tech industry, a 3 percent gain from 2021, representing almost 6 percent of all jobs.

The median wage for Boston-area tech workers was $115,803, more than double the median wage for all local workers. The Boston tech sector accounted for $75.5 billion of economic activity, accounting for almost 15 percent of the area’s economy, according to the CompTIA report.