For 30 minutes, they resembled corpses as the instructor, Millie Laws, 22, banged on a shamanic drum inside a room lit only by the golden glow of candlelight. The scene was meant to be relaxing — but for a couple walking their dog outside the building, it resembled something far more sinister.

“They reported to the police that they’d seen somebody walking around in a room lit up with candles and what looked like dead people lying all over the floor,” Laws told The Washington Post. “The couple thought it was some sort of ritual mass killing.”

By 9:30 that night, a cacophony of wailing sirens and police cars had descended upon Seascape Cafe in the North Sea Observatory building. At that point, the class had already ended, and the yogis had headed home after a “lovely relaxation session with no interruptions, thankfully,” said Laws, the owner of a yoga company called Unity Yoga.

Despite there being no corpses in sight when police arrived, Seascape Cafe thanked the officers for “their prompt response.” Lincolnshire Police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post. In a statement to the BBC, they said the 8:56 p.m. call by a concerned citizen was made “with good intentions.”

“I can’t imagine for one moment what would have [been] going through their minds on the way,” the cafe posted on Facebook. “Dear General Public, please be mindful that the Observatory has lots of Yoga classes happening in the evenings. We are not part of any mad cult or crazy clubs.”

In Chapel St. Leonards, a small seaside town in the county of Lincolnshire where yoga classes abound, Laws said she never imagined she’d be mistaken for a mass murderer — though she “can see where the confusion came from.”

That evening, she guided the seven students through a slew of asanas during the hour-and-a-half-long restorative yoga session meant to deeply stretch the muscles through different poses held for a couple of minutes each. The sun began setting as the yogis shifted into the meditation portion of the class. Inside the glass-paned room, the group lay with pillows and blankets as Laws began a sound bath — a calming ritual accompanied by the gentle metallic vibration of a drum.

At first the drumming was slow-paced, mirroring “the vibrations that the Earth gives off its core to get people into a state of relaxation,” Laws said.

The beats then crescendoed to induce a trance state. But at the point she had to once again slow down the sounds to “bring people back into the present moment,” Laws said she noticed a dog-walking couple peering into the glass.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “But because it was sunset and it was dark, I think all they could see were shadow figures of people lying on the floor with their eyes closed.” It didn’t help that Laws was the sole figure moving around, wearing a flowy top that resembled a robe.

When news about the police response began to spread, Laws said she couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that someone believed she could be a cult leader.

“It’s hilarious,” she said. “On the flip side, these people were managing to enter such a deep state of relaxation that — although it’s awful to compare it to death — they look so relaxed and comfortable.”

“I mean, you can say the meditation worked, though it’s definitely ironic they were in corpse pose,” she added.

Corpse pose, also known as shavasana and mritasana, is the yoga equivalent of walking after a heart-rate-boosting run. It’s like dropping dead on the floor, but it helps decrease the heart rate, reduce blood pressure and slow down breathing, experts told Healthline, helping the body “absorb the full effects of the workout,” lowering stress and boosting the mood.

After the kerfuffle over her students’ corpse pose, Laws said she hopes the episode brings more attention to the benefits of yoga.

“If anything, I’d like just more awareness to be brought to the great things deep meditation and entering this deep restful state can really bring into the mind and also the body,” she said.

More people need that, Laws added — especially when “we’ve just been fed so many horror movies and terrible news that we’re in a world where the first reaction is to think something terrible happened, instead of thinking it could just be the really wholesome evening it actually was.”

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The Cryogenian Sturtian and Marinoan Snowball Earth glaciations bracket is a nonglacial interval during which Demosponge and green-algal biomarkers first appeared. To understand the relationships between environmental perturbations and early animal evolution, a research group led by Shen Yan'an of the University of Science and Technology of China measured sulfur and mercury isotopes from south China.

Their research, published in the journal Science Advances on Thursday, shows that Snowball Earth may have provided a bottleneck for some preglacial life-forms but also suggests that melt ponds on the surface of ice and zones of sublimation were potential nurseries for the diversification of life.

The research team selected geological boreholes up to 100 meters deep for systematic analysis. They found that in the early period of Snowball Earth melting, the chemical composition of seawater was significantly different from modern seawater, and changes in mercury isotopes suggest enhanced volcanism.

Based on that, the researchers proposed that the sudden deglaciation caused a sudden depressurization of terrestrial magma chambers, thereby inducing magma activity and volcanic eruptions.

"It's like moving a huge boulder from the ground, and the suppressed underground magma suddenly erupted. The volcanic eruptions lasted for about 100,000 years, promoting a chain reaction in the Earth's environment," said Li Menghan, a member of the research team.

According to Shen, their research results have practical significance.

"We are currently in a period of global warming, and some glaciers are melting, which may also induce volcanic eruptions and cause hypoxia in the ocean. These are all warnings that we must pay attention to the possible chain reaction of the Earth's environment," Shen said. 

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A recent study at the University of Gothenburg found that nearly 5% of 70-year-olders have glaucoma, a common eye condition that can damage vision. What’s concerning is that half of those with glaucoma didn’t even know they had it.

Glaucoma is a severe eye disease that harms the optic nerve and can, in extreme cases, lead to blindness. Lena Havstam Johansson, a Ph.D. student at the University of Gothenburg and a nurse at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, conducted the research. Among the 560 participants examined by eye specialists, 4.8% had glaucoma.

Lena Havstam Johansson said, “Of those diagnosed with glaucoma via the study, 15 people – or 2.7% of all participants – were unaware that they had the disease before being examined. So half of those who turned out to have glaucoma were diagnosed because they took part in the study.”

For those newly diagnosed, this discovery allowed them to begin treatment with daily eye drops that reduce eye pressure and slow down optic nerve damage.

Surprisingly, people with glaucoma, a vision-affecting disease, lead similar lifestyles to those without it. They engage in similar physical activity levels, don’t smoke or drink more, and rate their overall quality of life as good. They also don’t feel more tired or depressed.

This discovery may comfort those with glaucoma, as living with a vision-impairing disease can be challenging. However, it’s important to note that people with glaucoma did report a lower quality of life-related to their vision. They mentioned difficulties with tasks like climbing stairs, seeing at night and noticing things in their peripheral vision. This can lead to social isolation and a loss of independence, causing frustration and limitations in daily life.

Researchers conducted a study as part of the H70 study, which examined the health of older people in Gothenburg for 50 years. They invited 1,203 individuals born in 1944 for comprehensive physical and cognitive tests. Among them, 1,182 answered questions about their eye health and family history of glaucoma, and eye specialists examined 560 at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

The findings confirm that genetics play a role in glaucoma, as those with the condition were likelier to have close relatives with it. Glaucoma typically involves higher eye pressure, but interestingly, 67% of newly diagnosed individuals had normal eye pressure.

In the early stages, the healthy eye can compensate for vision loss, making it challenging to detect glaucoma. The research shows that glaucoma often doesn’t initially affect visual acuity, making it harder to spot.

These results have been published in two articles in the journal Acta Ophthalmologica.

The study’s findings emphasize the importance of regular eye check-ups, especially for older individuals. Glaucoma can develop without significant symptoms, leading to undiagnosed cases. Early detection and intervention can help manage the condition and prevent potential vision loss.

While glaucoma may not initially affect visual acuity, it is crucial to address the disease promptly to maintain eye health and overall quality of life.

Awareness of the hereditary factors and variations in eye pressure associated with glaucoma can aid in early identification and management.

Journal Reference:

1.  Lena Havstam Johansson, Lada Kalaboukhova, et al., The prevalence of glaucoma in a 70-year-old Swedish population in the city area of Gothenburg. Acta Ophthalmologica. DOI: 10.1111/aos.15734.

2  Lena Havstam Johansson, Lada Kalaboukhova. Vision-related quality of life among 70-year-olds diagnosed with glaucoma. Acta Opthalmologica. DOI: 10.1111/aos.15737.

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Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study.

Scientists analysed 78 Antarctic ice cores to recreate temperatures going back 1,000 years and found the warming across the continent was outside what could be expected from natural swings.

In West Antarctica, a region considered particularly vulnerable to warming with an ice sheet that could push up global sea levels by several metres if it collapsed, the study found warming at twice the rate suggested by climate models.

Climate scientists have long expected that polar regions would warm faster than the rest of the planet – a phenomenon known as polar amplification – and this has been seen in the Arctic.

Dr Mathieu Casado, of the Laboratoire des Science du Climat et de l’Environnement in France and lead author of the study, said they had found “direct evidence” that Antarctica was also now undergoing polar amplification.

“It is extremely concerning to see such significant warming in Antarctica, beyond natural variability,” he said.

Antarctica is the size of the continental US and Mexico combined, but has only 23 permanent weather stations and only three of these are away from the coast.

Casado and colleagues examined 78 Antarctic ice cores that hold a record of temperature and then compared those temperatures to climate models and observations.

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found Antarctica was warming at a rate of between 0.22C and 0.32C per decade, compared to 0.18C per decade predicted by climate models.

Part of the warming in Antarctica is likely being masked by a change in a pattern of winds – also thought to be linked to global heating and the loss of ozone over the continent – that has tended to reduce temperatures.

Dr Sarah Jackson, an ice core expert at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the study, said the findings were “deeply concerning”.

“All our projections for future sea level rise use these low rates of warming. Our models might be underestimating the loss of ice that we might get,” she said.

Dr Danielle Udy, a climate scientist and ice core expert at the University of Tasmania, who was not involved in the paper, said the research was timely “given the extreme events we have been seeing in Antarctica”.

Scientists are scrambling to understand why Antarctic sea ice has been at record low levels over the last two years, with some suggesting global heating could now be affecting the region.

Thousands of emperor penguin chicks likely died in late 2022 after the usually stable sea ice supporting colonies in West Antarctica melted.

Dr Kyle Clem, a scientist at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, has studied recent record high temperatures at one weather station at the south pole.

Clem said Antarctica’s climate was subject to large natural swings, but Casado’s study had shown “a detectable change in Antarctic climate and an emergence of anthropogenic polar amplification”.

He said the results would be crucial for understanding the future of the continent “as greenhouse gases continue to increase”.

“The implications of this study are of particular importance for considering future changes in Antarctic sea ice, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and potentially even sea level rise,” Clem said.

“If anthropogenic polar amplification is already occurring in the Antarctic that exceeds that simulated by climate models, then future warming will likely be greater than that currently projected by climate models.”

A warming Antarctic, he said, would also likely lead to further losses of sea ice that would have implications for “ocean warming, global ocean circulation, and marine ecosystems”.

“As far as sea level rise, ocean warming is already melting protective ice shelves in West Antarctica and causing the West Antarctic ice sheet to retreat.”

Greater warming could also lead to more melting of coastal ice shelves that protect glaciers.

“This has already been seen on the Antarctic peninsula in recent decades, and it could become a more widespread occurrence around Antarctica sooner than anticipated in a more strongly warming Antarctic climate,” he said.

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Led by the Manchu people, the Great Qing took control of Beijing in 1644 and reached its greatest extent in terms of area by 1760. In 1820, the imperial dynasty had made China the world's largest economy, but trouble lay ahead.

Here, researchers from Osaka University in Japan, Shanghai Normal University in China, the Evolution Institute and the University of Washington in the US, and the Complexity Science Hub Vienna in Austria, used structural-demographic theory (SDT) to chart the fall of the Qing dynasty.

The extent of the Qing empire. (Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)

The theory, which is based on mathematical models, splits societies into four sections: the state, the elites, the generation population, and an extra component that measures political instability. Each section influences the others in a dynamic way.

"We argue that the four-fold population explosion peaking in the 19th century, the growing competition for a stagnant number of elite positions, and increasing state fiscal stress combined to produce an increasingly disgruntled populace and elite, leading to significant internal rebellions," write the researchers in their published paper.

Population growth led to overcrowding, poverty, and an overflow of qualified bureaucrats unable to rise up the ranks, the researchers say. The cost of keeping order, adding to burdens associated with depleting silver reserves and opium imports, exacerbated the problems even further.

It seems likely that the Qing rulers were fully aware of these problems – they just didn't act smartly or quickly enough. A combination of internal uprisings and external geopolitical challengers ultimately sealed the fate of the dynasty.

"This clearly demonstrates that any economy must be vigilant as circumstances can change, and sometimes rather rapidly," says Georg Orlandi, from Osaka University.

The team draws parallels between the conditions of the Qing dynasty's fall and some of the issues and instabilities in today's societies, including rising inequality and diminishing opportunities to progress – problems that governments would be wise to address.

That's easier said than done though. These stresses often appear over the longer term, whereas governments are typically changing and evolving over the short term, and that means the fate of the Qing dynasty could well be repeated elsewhere.

"It's crucial to comprehend the origins of such instabilities," says Peter Turchin, from the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, Austria. "Assuming it's a thing of the past and can't recur would be a mistake."

"Such changes can indeed happen because the underlying mechanisms bear surprising similarities."

The research has been published in PLOS ONE.

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Following the shootdown of three unidentified objects in three days over Alaska, the Yukon and Lake Huron in February and the downing of a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina a week earlier, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received a secret memo laying out how the Canadian government was responding to the Feb. 11 Yukon incident. In addition, it stated the "full exploitation" of whatever the U.S. Air Force shot down over the waters of Alaska on Feb. 10 had "not yet been completed." Reports a few days later stated that the U.S. had called off the search for wreckage of the downed object. Exactly what kind of intelligence exploitation this is referring to is unclear.

The "Memorandum for the Prime Minister," transmitted Feb. 14, was obtained by the Canadian CTV News outlet from a source who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the news organization said it verified with its own information request. According to the memo, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) numbered unknown objects sequentially "to track every detected object that is not immediately identified: upon cross-examination most objects are found to be innocuous and do not meet the higher threshold for higher reporting or engagement." However, the object the memo identified as "UAP #23" - meaning it was the 23rd unidentified radar track by NORAD over North America at that point in the year that was classified as UAP - did rise to a higher level of concern, given that it was shot down.

The memo stated that “the function, method of propulsion, or affiliation to any nation-state” of the unidentified object shot down by a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor on Feb. 11 “remains unverified. It is unknown whether it poses an armed threat or has intelligence collection capabilities.”

The memo also pointed out that the Canadian Air Force (CAF) was leading an aviation search effort to find the downed object, there was scant hope that it would be found.

“...the mountainous terrain, existing snow cover and expected new snowfall make prospect of recovery unlikely.”

The memo expressed concern that the indigenous hunters might accidentally find the object during their caribou hunt. It also explained that while CAF CF-18s Hornets had been scrambled to intercept the object, “F-22s were better located based on time, space and fading light.” 

The memo was sent to Trudeau and his national security advisor, Jody Thomas, by a Canadian official named Janice Charette, who then served as “the powerful clerk of the Privy Council,” CTV News explained. The council “is a centralized hub that directs the country's public service and is responsible for providing non-partisan support to the prime minister and cabinet as they make policy decisions,” the news outlet said.

Charette raised questions about whether the object was an armed threat or was capable of collecting intelligence three days after descriptions of it were released by Canadian authorities and media reporting.

During the Feb. 11 press conference as we noted at the time, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said the unknown object was a "small, cylindrical object" smaller than the Chinese spy balloon shot down off South Carolina on Feb. 4. The object was reportedly flying at 40,000 feet when it was shot down. 

Also that day, The Wall Street Journal, citing an official brief on the matter, reported that the object was a small metallic balloon with a tethered payload. That seemed to correlate with Canadian Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre's statement at the aforementioned press conference when discussing cooperation between U.S. F-22s and Canadian CF-18s.

"The instructions that were given to the team was whoever had the first, best shot to take out the balloon had the go-ahead," Eyre said at the time.

Charette’s memo also briefly addressed the Feb. 10 UAP shootdown by an F-22 over the water in the northeastern corner of Alaska near the border with Canada described as “UAP #20.”

“The full exploitation of UAP #20, which was engaged by the U.S. on February 10, 2023, has not yet been completed,” Charette wrote. 

On Feb. 11, The New York Times reported that the fallen object “broke into pieces” on hitting the frozen sea ice off Prudhoe Bay.

Three days after Charette delivered her memo, The New York Times reported that “the U.S. called off the search” for both the objects mentioned in Charette’s memo, “raising the possibility that the devices will never be collected and analyzed, according to a U.S. military official.”

It is also unclear what the memo meant about the “full exploitation” of the UAP shot down over Alaska on Feb. 10. However, there are a number of lines of effort to which she could have been referring.

The intelligence services, along with the U.S. military, conduct what’s called Foreign Material Exploitation (FME) of targeted crash sites of aircraft and missiles to learn more about how they are build, operate, and their actual capabilities. This is a long-established, shadowy practice that has been critical to major adversary intelligence revelations over the decades. You can read all about crash retrievals and their 'cloak and dagger history' in our story here.

There was an active and intensive search over this remote part of Alaska to find the wreckage. So a crash retrieval was certainly the aim, but if nothing was found, as claimed by the U.S. government, the memo could be referring to data culled from sensors collected by a slew of assets that tracked the object. Aviation platforms, in particular, would have gotten the closest to it and recorded visual information of it as it made its trek across the Alaskan frontier.

As we noted in our report from the time, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, told reporters that a two-ship flight of F-35s conducted the initial intercept and identification of the object.

The F-35s would have full video of the object, day or night, using its Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) as well as any infrared data collected by its Distributed Aperture System (DAS). This is in addition to its myriad of radio-frequency-based sensor systems.

The Feb. 10 incident over Alaska remains shrouded in mystery and from the information available stands in stark contrast to the other objects shot down in several ways.

Shortly after the shootdown, the White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby significant said debris was reportedly sitting atop of sea ice and efforts were being made to recover if for analysis. He also said the object did not appear to be readily maneuverable or have a substantial payload.

Ryder said the object, traveling at about 40,000 feet, was "about the size of a small car." It was shot down because at that altitude, it was perceived as a threat to aviation.

ABC News reported that the "object" shot down off the coast of Alaska was "cylindrical and silver-ish gray," according to an unnamed U.S. official. "All I say is that it wasn't 'flying' with any sort of propulsion, so if that is 'balloon-like' well – we just don't have enough at this point."

Those details differed greatly from we'd learned so far about the Chinese spy balloon, which was ultimately shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. That balloon, which had a payload U.S. officials described as being the size of a smaller airliner and as weighing thousands of pounds, was said to have the ability to maneuver and had been soaring at an altitude of between 60,000 and 70,000 feet.

In this vacuum of information, exotic and unconfirmed claims have been made about the Alaskan object, ranging from different accounts by pilots who observed it to reports that it seemingly interfered with some aircraft sensors.

Beyond reporting about the objects that were shot down, the Charette memo does not specifically address UAPs #21 and #22, which could have been found to be innocuous objects that happened to be picked up by radar. However, on Feb. 12, a U.S. Air Force F-16 shot down a UAP over Lake Huron as we noted earlier in this story. It is unclear though whether that was one of either UAP #21 or #22, since officials at the time said the object was first identified on Feb. 12.

The object shot down over Lake Huron seemed to have been a relatively small balloon based on intercepted radio communications.

We reached out to several agencies for more information about the details provided in the Charette memo. We also reached out to Charette herself on her LinkedIn page and several government emails to find out and whether she received any answers and if so, what they were. We will update this story if she provides a pertinent response.

A NORAD spokesperson told The War Zone on Wednesday that it would not be able to “address the memo specifically.”

“I would caution that one internal document from Feb. 15 may not present the most accurate information about events or processes during that period,” Air Force Col. Elizabeth Mathias said in an email to The War Zone Wednesday. “But we’ll be happy to provide more information about our operations and procedures. More to follow, and thanks.”

We also reached out to the Canadian Defense Ministry, U.S. National Security Council and the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) - the Pentagon unit that tracks UAPs - for additional responses. We will update this story with any pertinent information they provide.

Despite numerous requests from Congress and media outlets including The War Zone, the Pentagon has yet to release any imagery from the three shootdowns over North America, raising questions about what, if anything, it is trying to hide. Especially since there was a wealth of data and imagery collected during observation and destruction of the objects.

The discovery and later shootdown of the Chinese spy balloon on Feb. 4 raised huge alarms about the ability of the U.S. to protect its airspace against such objects. This is something The War Zone had pointed out repeatedly years in advance of these events. In the aftermath of this string of bizarre incidents, major moves began to be made to change how unidentified objects are dealt with, as well as making it easier for them to be spotted in the first place. Major upgrades to NORAD's sensor ecosystem are also in the works as are demands from Congress for the multi-national military organization to better understand its own vulnerabilities.

The fact is that the lack of information surrounding these unprecedented series of events over North America continues to puzzle many and the optics surrounding them clearly irk the Pentagon. What exactly was known about these objects and how they differed from each other, and when that information was known, remains a mystery to the public.

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The three-month period from June through August surpassed previous records by a large margin, with an average temperature of 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.2F) - 0.66C above average.

Last month was the also the hottest August on record globally, the third straight month in a row to set such a record following the hottest ever June and July, the EU said on Wednesday.

August is estimated to have been around 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the pre-industrial average for the 1850-1900 period. Pursuing efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius is a central pledge of the Paris international climate change agreement adopted by 196 countries in 2015.

July 2023 remains the hottest month ever recorded, while August's record makes the northern hemisphere's summer the hottest since records began in 1940.

"Global temperature records continue to tumble in 2023," Copernicus deputy head Samantha Burgess said.

"The scientific evidence is overwhelming, we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases," Burgess said.

In Europe, August was wetter than normal last month over large parts of central Europe and Scandinavia leading to flooding, while France, Greece, Italy and Portugal saw droughts that led to wildfires.

Well-above average temperatures also occurred over Australia, several South American countries and around much of Antarctica in August, the institute said.

Meanwhile, the global ocean saw the warmest daily surface temperature on record, and had its warmest month overall.

With four months left in 2023, this year is so far the second-hottest on record, only marginally behind 2016.

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Americans have developed a laxative habit. 

Surging demand is contributing to a shortage of polyethylene glycol 3350, the generic name for laxatives like Miralax and Glycolax,

gastroenterologists and suppliers say. Consumers are noticing emptier shelves in drugstores across the country as a result.

Gastrological and behavioral experts point to an aging population and that most Americans don’t consume enough fiber, which can lead to constipation.

They also cite the lingering physical and psychological effects of the pandemic as a culprit behind consumers’ growing reliance on the products.

People ate worse, exercised less and experienced more anxiety during quarantine, doctors say, all of which are major causes of bowel dysfunction.

Now, a surge in travel and hybrid work schedules are disrupting routines and mealtimes, likely leading to irregularity. Though certain laxatives and supplements are safe to take regularly, health providers say growing overuse concerns them.

“It’s crazy to think that our collective bowel dysfunction problems have gotten so bad that we’re literally running out of stool softeners,” says Dr. George Pavlou, who runs Gastroenterology Associates of New Jersey. 

Some people are treating laxatives like a budget Ozempic to feel skinnier, psychologists say. And social media, including TikTok’s popular #GutTok, spreads misinformation around what healthy bathroom behavior looks like, doctors say. 

Searches for laxative pills on Amazon have more than tripled in the past year, according to analytics company Pattern. Manufacturers of fiber supplements Metamucil and Benefiber, meanwhile, report double-digit sales growth in recent years. Bayer, which owns Miralax, declined to comment. 

Dow Chemical is building new factories in part to boost production of polyethylene glycol—the medication that’s been in short supply since the pandemic—employees say. The product also has nonmedical applications.

More young buyers

Older people exercise and move less, and are more likely to take medication that causes constipation, gastroenterologists say. Doctors commonly advise them to take fiber supplements or laxatives. (A fiber supplement is a bulking agent that helps to form stools that are easier to pass. Laxatives draw in water or physically stimulate the colon to contract.) 

More surprising, suppliers say, are the numbers of younger customers now relying on the products. Benefiber manufacturer Haleon reports that 18- to 42-year-olds are buying the fiber supplement faster than ever.  

“The demand has changed,” says Jissan Cherian, who oversees marketing for the brand and notes that its messaging hasn’t shifted. He attributes the shift to the focus on wellness and to a growing awareness of the connection between gut bacteria and depression. 

TikTok’s #GutTok hashtag has amassed 1.1 billion views. PHOTO: WSJ

Haleon started selling a gummy version of the product, which traditionally comes in powder form, earlier this year to appeal to young adults. 

Sophie Spiers, a 30-year-old fashion copywriter in Los Angeles, dissolves a serving of Miralax into a glass of water every morning. She used to feel “old” for taking a daily laxative in her 20s. She says her perception of the behavior has changed as the topic becomes less taboo. 

On a recent trip to Las Vegas for a Beyoncé concert, Spiers and her friends casually discussed their constipation. “One of our friends was like, ‘Can we not talk about this over lunch?’ But the rest of us were being pretty open about it,” Spiers says, adding she offered her Miralax to everyone. 

Carly Goldberg Black, 28, an advertising professional in Washington, D.C., has been surprised by the number of people around her age complaining of problems going to the bathroom. 

Because she’s long been open about her laxative use, Black says that friends call her all the time for advice when they’re backed up. “I’m like the Miralax speed-dial consultant,” she said. 

She says she worries about the recent shortages she’s noticed in her local drugstores. “I’m a brand loyalist, but I’ve found myself reaching for the Wal-lax or CVS-lax, because they’re selling out,” Black says of the name-brand shortages. 

Unneeded purchases

As people struggle with real bowel dysfunction, they are also confused about what healthy bathroom habits look like, doctors say. This makes them more likely to rely too much on supplements and laxatives. 

Mayo Clinic gastroenterology professor Dr. Brian Lacy says many people think they need to have a bowel movement every day. “That’s a misconception,” he says, explaining that the healthy range is between three a day and three a week. 

He always recommends his patients start by upping their intake of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains before turning to fiber powders and gummies. 

Lacy sees increased laxative use as part of a growing reliance on quick fixes over long-term behavioral change. 

Eating disorder specialist Dr. Jenna DiLossi says she’s seen a sharp rise in teenage patients abusing laxatives over the past two years. Some view laxatives as a budget, over-the-counter Ozempic, she says, despite the fact that the products don’t help with weight loss. 

Overuse can also lead to chronic dehydration and loss of electrolytes. In some cases, users can become dependent on laxatives, where they can no longer have bowel movements without taking them. 

Before the pandemic, DiLossi says new clients rarely responded “yes” to laxative use in intake surveys. Now, the Ardmore, Pa., clinical psychologist says at least three of the five or so new teens she sees a week admit to having tried a laxative for weight loss. 

“When people have an excessive bowel movement and they feel completely empty inside, that gets wrapped up in thinness and health,” says DiLossi. 

Teens tell her they get the idea from TikTok, where videos with the #GutTok hashtag have amassed 1.1 billion views. Even the videos that don’t directly promote stool softeners for weight loss support the notion that going to the bathroom more is better, she says. 

Spiers, the fashion copywriter, is familiar with the appeal of feeling “light” after taking a laxative. She says she’s learned to differentiate healthy from unhealthy reliance, now only taking the medication under the direction of a doctor to treat constipation. But she empathizes with those who struggle with overuse. 

“I had periods in my early 20s where I really struggled with disordered eating, and it became tied to a mental thing of having to take my Miralax or I’m going to feel fat today,” she says. 

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But the top two killers are actually cardiovascular disease and cancer. These two diseases combined account for nearly 50 percent of deaths in the US.

Cardiovascular disease and cancer seem to be quite different on the surface. But newly discovered parallels between the origins and development of these two diseases mean that some treatments may be effective against both.

I am a biomedical engineer who has spent two decades studying and developing ways to improve how drugs travel through the body. It turns out that tiny, engineered nanoparticles that can target specific immune cells may be a way to treat both cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease and cancer

Atherosclerosis is the most deadly form of cardiovascular disease. It results from inflammation and the buildup of fat, cholesterol and other lipids in the blood vessel wall, forming a plaque.

Most heart attacks are caused by plaque rupture. The body's attempt to heal the wound can form a blood clot that blocks blood vessels and result in a heart attack.

On the other hand, cancer usually arises from genetic mutations that make cells divide uncontrollably. Unrestrainable, rapid cell growth that is untreated can be destructive because it is difficult to stop without harming healthy organs. Cancer can start from and occur in any organ of the body.

Although cardiovascular disease and cancer appear to have different origins and causes, they share many risk factors. For example, obesity, smoking, chronic stress and certain lifestyle choices like poor diet are linked to both diseases. Why might these two diseases share similar risk factors?

Many of the similarities between cardiovascular disease and cancer can be traced to inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a primary cause of atherosclerosis by damaging the cells lining the blood vessels and progressively worsening plaques.

Likewise, chronic inflammation can initiate cancer by increasing mutations and support cancer cell survival and spread by increasing the growth of the blood vessels that feed them nutrients and suppressing the body's immune response.

Treating two conditions at once

Research hints that therapies designed for cancer can also help treat atherosclerosis.

One example is drugs that target immune cells called macrophages in tumors and cause them to eat cancer cells. It turns out a similar drug can cause macrophages to clear dead and dying cells in atherosclerosis, which shrinks plaques.

Another example are antiglycolytic therapies that prevent the breakdown of glucose. Glucose, or sugar, is the body's main source of energy. These drugs can make diseased tumor blood vessels and atherosclerotic blood vessels look more "normal," essentially reversing the disease process in those vessels. They can also reduce inflammation in atherosclerosis.

Although currently marketed treatments like statins and fibrates can lower lipid levels and blood clotting in atherosclerosis, these drugs have not sufficiently addressed the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

To improve outcomes, clinicians are increasingly using multiple drugs directed against different targets. One intriguing class of treatments is sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, which are traditionally used to treat diabetes. Researchers have shown that these drugs both provide significant protection from cardiovascular disease and treat cancer.

Clinical trials on statins and sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors indicate a close overlap between inflammation, metabolism and cardiovascular disease that suggests new treatment opportunities.

One example is immunotherapies that "inhibit the inhibition" of immunity – that is, they take off the brakes that tumors place on the immune system. This approach to treat cancer also reduced atherosclerotic plaques in animal studies and reduced vascular inflammation in a small study in people.

A nanomedical Trojan horse

A recent discovery showed that nanotubes – a very small particle made of carbon that is over 10,000 times thinner than a human hair – can go into specific immune cells, travel through the bloodstream and enter tumors as a Trojan horse. These nanotubes can carry anything that researchers put on them, including drugs and imaging contrast agents.

The immune cells carrying the nanotubes naturally home in on tumors through the inflammatory response. Since cancer and atherosclerosis are both inflammatory diseases, my research team and I have been studying whether nanotube-loaded immune cells may also serve as delivery vehicles to plaques.

Nanotubes can be loaded with a therapy that stimulates immune cells to "eat" plaque debris and thus reduce plaque size. Moreover, restricting drug delivery specifically to those immune cells reduces the risk of off-target side effects. These nanotubes can also be used to improve diagnosis of cardiovascular disease by highlighting plaques.

Another way nanoparticles can enter tumors is by squeezing through openings in new blood vessels grown in inflammatory conditions. This is known as the enhanced permeation and retention effect, where larger molecules and nanoparticles accumulate in tissues with leaky blood vessels and remain there for some time because of their size.

First discovered in cancer, researchers are applying this effect to improve drug delivery for cardiovascular disease, which can also involve leaky blood vessels.

Improving drug development

The molecular pathways cancer and cardiovascular disease share have important regulatory implications. The costs involved in getting drugs into the clinic are enormous.

The possibility of applying the same drug to two different patient populations offers big financial and risk-reduction incentives. It also offers the potential for simultaneous treatment for patients with both diseases.

Nanoparticle-based cancer drugs first entered the clinic in 1995, and researchers have developed many others since. But there is currently only one cardiovascular nanodrug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This suggests opportunity for new nanotherapy approaches to improve cardiovascular drug efficacy and reduce side effects.

Because of the parallels between cancer and cardiovascular disease, cancer nanodrugs may be strong drug candidates to treat cardiovascular disease and vice versa.

As basic science discovers other molecular parallels between these diseases, patients will be the beneficiaries of better therapies that can treat both.

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A team led by Purdue University has developed what they're calling a 'mini-brain', which houses clusters of cultured mouse neurons alongside nutrients in a tiny chamber. This device can then be used to examine the effects of heavy impacts on brain cells.

"We're basically creating a miniature brain that we can hit and then study," says neuroscientist Riyi Shi, from Purdue University.

"With the TBI on a chip, we're able to test a lot of hypotheses that would be very difficult to do in living animals."

The mini brain is struck with a pendulum, and the effects on the cells analyzed. (Rogers et al., Lab on a Chip, 2023)

After subjecting their mini-brain to three blows of 200 g-force – each similar to a hit on the head that might cause concussion in American football – the researchers noticed the cells produced a surge of acrolein, which has previously been linked to cell damage and neurodegenerative disease.

An increase in misfolded amyloid beta 42 proteins was also noticed after the hits, triggered by the acrolein increase. Clumps of these proteins are found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease; that's two key risk signals, both happening within the first 24 hours after the simulated blows to the head.

The good news is that this new knowledge could help with the treatment of the disease. Further tests by the researchers showed that the drug hydralazine, already used to treat high blood pressure and known to target acrolein, could reduce the levels of acrolein after a concussion hit.

"Acrolein is time-dependent – the longer it's there, the more AB42 aggregation it will cause," says Shi. "Here we show that if we lower acrolein with this drug, we can lower inflammation and AB42 aggregation."

While we're learning more about Alzheimer's all the time, it's still not fully clear how the disease gets started and spreads, which in turn makes it very difficult to develop a cure. Discoveries about key neural pathways that increase Alzheimer's risk, such as the one here, should help.

And with this mini-brain, scientists have something they can repeatedly hit using a pendulum mechanism and then carefully observe by studying the cells under a microscope and then removing them for further analysis.

"Thanks to this device, people should know that when you get a concussion, you don't have 10 years before you will see damage," says Shi. "The clock starts ticking immediately, and if we want to do something about it, we need to act quickly."

The research has been published in Lab on a Chip.

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That happens because snow in the Arctic contains tiny particles of sea salt. If these aerosols are whipped up into the atmosphere, new findings suggest they can enhance cloud formation by up to tenfold.

Clouds in the Arctic are a two-edged sword when it comes to regional warming. Their presence can reflect sunlight, but they can also impede heat from the surface of the Earth escaping into the atmosphere at night. The trapped heat ultimately has a warming effect on the ground below.

Today, climate scientists agree that the Arctic has warmed many times faster than the rest of the world in the past half-century, but how many times faster is still up for debate.

Climate models don't always match up with each other or the realities at hand. The paradoxical interaction between Arctic wind and snow could be one of many overlooked factors.

Human-made air pollutants that are blown into the Arctic's atmosphere are known to trigger regional fog, called Arctic haze, which can have a warming effect, too.

But sea salt particles from the region were not thought to end up in the atmosphere in the same way.

"Sea salt particles in the Arctic atmosphere aren't surprising, since there are ocean waves breaking that will generate sea salt aerosols. But we expect those particles from the ocean to be pretty large and not very abundant," explains atmospheric scientist Jian Wang from Washington University in St. Louis.

"We found sea salt particles that were much smaller and in higher concentration than expected when there was blowing snow under strong wind conditions."

Using data from an expedition that drifted in the Arctic for over a year, Wang and colleagues observed snow blowing more than 20 percent of the time between November and April.

Data from an aerosol-observing system allowed the team to then compare three blowing events to the makeup of clouds overhead.

Their models estimate that sea salt aerosols from blowing snow contribute to more than a quarter of the particles in Arctic clouds.

"Considering the absence of sunlight in the winter and spring Arctic, these clouds have the capacity to trap surface long-wave radiation, thereby significantly warming the Arctic surface," says first author Xianda Gong, a former postdoctoral researcher in Wang's lab.

The observational evidence fits nicely with other recent studies, which merely hint at the possibility of sea salt aerosols from snow flying up into the atmosphere on the wings of the wind.

"Model simulations that don't include fine sea salt aerosols from blowing snow underestimate aerosol population in the Arctic," says Wang.

"Blowing snow happens regardless of human warming, but we need to include it in our models to better reproduce the current aerosol populations in the Arctic and to project future Arctic aerosol and climate conditions."

The study was published in Nature Geoscience.

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The autonomic nervous system regulates blood pressure in different body positions; however, gravity may cause blood to pool when a person is seated or upright, and the body is sometimes unable to properly regulate blood pressure during lying, seated and standing positions, the authors noted.

"If blood pressure is only measured while people are seated upright, cardiovascular disease risk may be missed if not measured also while they are lying supine on their backs," said lead study author Duc M. Giao, a researcher and a 4th-year M.D. student at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

To examine body position, blood pressure and heart health risk, the researchers examined health data for 11,369 adults from the longitudinal Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. The data on supine and seated blood pressure was gathered during the enrollment period, ARIC visit 1, which took place between 1987–1989.

Participants had their blood pressure taken while briefly lying down at a clinic. The average age of participants at that time was 54 years old; 56% of the group self-identified as female; and 25% of participants self-identified as Black race. Participants in this analysis were followed for an average of 25 to 28 years, up through ARIC visit 5, which includes health data collected from 2011-2013.

The researchers' findings included:

• 16% percent of participants who did not have high blood pressure—defined in this study as having top and bottom blood pressure measures greater than or equal to 130/80 mm Hg—while seated had high blood pressure while lying supine (flat on their backs), compared to 74% of those with seated high blood pressure who also had supine high blood pressure.

• In comparison to participants who did not have high blood pressure while seated and supine, participants who had high blood pressure while seated and supine had a 1.6 times higher risk of developing coronary heart disease; a 1.83 times higher risk of developing heart failure; a 1.86 times higher risk of stroke; a 1.43 times higher risk of overall premature death; and a 2.18 times higher risk of dying from coronary heart disease

• Participants who had high blood pressure while supine but not while seated had similar elevated risks as participants who had high blood pressure while both seated and supine.

• Differences in blood pressure medication use did not affect these elevated risks in either group.

"Our findings suggest people with known risk factors for heart disease and stroke may benefit from having their blood pressure checked while lying flat on their backs," Giao said.

"Efforts to manage blood pressure during daily life may help lower blood pressure while sleeping. Future research should compare supine blood pressure measurements in the clinic with overnight measurements."

The study's limitations included that it focused on adults who were middle-aged at the time of enrollment, meaning the results might not be as generalizable to older populations, Giao said.

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Published in the August edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the paper's authors at NYU's School of Global Public Health, were inspired by the dearth of research on the "long-term cognitive impact of internet usage among older adults," especially with most of what is out there focusing on the negative impacts of internet use rather than potential positives.

The researchers followed the healthcare outcomes of dementia-free adults between the ages of 50 and 65 for up to 17 years using the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal survey that contains information about 20,000 older American adults.

Every two years between 2002 and 2018, the Michigan study's coordinators asked participants if they "regularly" used the internet and, if so, how much they used it. The answers varied, but 65 percent said they were regular users and 21 percent saw their habits change significantly over their participation period. Unfortunately, some participants either died or developed dementia during the period as well.

Of those participants who were active users, the new study's authors found that there was a 1.54 percent risk of developing dementia, whereas non-users seemed to have a whopping 10.45 percent risk. Measuring the amount of time it took for the survey's participants to develop dementia, the AGS study found that regular internet users were just half as likely to develop the cognitive disorder than their non-using counterparts.

An important caveat, though, was that there did seem to also be a correlation between using the internet too much and developing dementia as well, with the risk seeming to increase in those who used it for more than two hours per day.

"Among older adults, regular internet users may experience a lower risk of dementia compared to non‐regular users, and longer periods of regular internet usage in late adulthood may help reduce the risks of subsequent dementia incidence," Gawon Cho, then at NYU, told Medscape Medical News earlier this year of the study's findings. "Nonetheless, using the internet excessively daily may negatively affect the risk of dementia in older adults."

As with many other studies, of course, there's always the chance that the relationship between correlation and causation is more complex than it appears.

"It may be that regular internet usage is associated with increased cognitive stimulation, and in turn reduced risk of dementia," Claire Sexton of the Alzheimer's Association, who was not involved in the research, told Medscape, "or it may be that individuals with lower risk of dementia are more likely to engage in regular internet usage."

To clarify that causation issue — and to better understand this link in the first place — Sexton said that there needs to be further research. But in the meantime, this new piece of evidence shows that maybe a little screen time isn't the worst thing in the world as you age.

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FOR STATE-SPONSORED HACKING operations, unpatched vulnerabilities are valuable ammunition. Intelligence agencies and militaries seize on hackable bugs when they're revealed—exploiting them to carry out their campaigns of espionage or cyberwar—or spend millions to dig up new ones or to buy them in secret from the hacker gray market.

But for the past two years, China has added another approach to obtaining information about those vulnerabilities: a law that simply demands that any network technology business operating in the country hand it over. When tech companies learn of a hackable flaw in their products, they’re now required to tell a Chinese government agency—which, in some cases, then shares that information with China's state-sponsored hackers, according to a new investigation. And some evidence suggests foreign firms with China-based operations are complying with the law, indirectly giving Chinese authorities hints about potential new ways to hack their own customers.

Today, the Atlantic Council released a report—whose findings the authors shared in advance with WIRED—that investigates the fallout of a Chinese law passed in 2021, designed to reform how companies and security researchers operating in China handle the discovery of security vulnerabilities in tech products. The law requires, among other things, that tech companies that discover or learn of a hackable flaw in their products must share information about it within two days with a Chinese agency known as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The agency then adds the flaw to a database whose name translates from Mandarin as the Cybersecurity Threat and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform but is often called by a simpler English name, the National Vulnerability Database.

The report’s authors combed through the Chinese government's own descriptions of that program to chart the complex path the vulnerability information then takes: The data is shared with several other government bodies, including China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Teams/Coordination Center, or CNCERT/CC, an agency devoted to defending Chinese networks. But the researchers found that CNCERT/CC makes its reports available to technology "partners" that include exactly the sort of Chinese organizations devoted not to fixing security vulnerabilities but to exploiting them. One such partner is the Beijing bureau of China's Ministry of State Security, the agency responsible for many of the country's most aggressive state-sponsored hacking operations in recent years, from spy campaigns to disruptive cyberattacks. And the vulnerability reports are also shared with Shanghai Jiaotong University and the security firm Beijing Topsec, both of which have a history of lending their cooperation to hacking campaigns carried out by China's People Liberation Army.

“As soon as the regulations were announced, it was apparent that this was going to become an issue,” says Dakota Cary, a researcher at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and one of the report’s authors. “Now we've been able to show that there is real overlap between the people operating this mandated reporting structure who have access to the vulnerabilities reported and the people carrying out offensive hacking operations.”

Given that patching vulnerabilities in technology products almost always takes far longer than the Chinese law’s two-day disclosure deadline, the Atlantic Council researchers argue that the law essentially puts any firm with China-based operations in an impossible position: Either leave China or give sensitive descriptions of vulnerabilities in the company’s products to a government that may well use that information for offensive hacking.

The researchers found, in fact, that some firms appear to be taking that second option. They point to a July 2022 document posted to the account of a research organization within the Ministry of Industry and Information Technologies on the Chinese-language social media service WeChat. The posted document lists members of the Vulnerability Information Sharing program that “passed examination,” possibly indicating that the listed companies complied with the law. The list, which happens to focus on industrial control system (or ICS) technology companies, includes six non-Chinese firms: Beckhoff, D-Link, KUKA, Omron, Phoenix Contact, and Schneider Electric.

WIRED asked all six firms if they are in fact complying with the law and sharing information about unpatched vulnerabilities in their products with the Chinese government. Only two, D-Link and Phoenix Contact, flatly denied giving information about unpatched vulnerabilities to Chinese authorities, though most of the others contended that they only offered relatively innocuous vulnerability information to the Chinese government and did so at the same time as giving that information to other countries’ governments or to their own customers.

The Atlantic Council report’s authors concede that the companies on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list aren’t likely handing over detailed vulnerability information that could immediately be used by Chinese state hackers. Coding a reliable “exploit,” a hacking software tool that takes advantage of a security vulnerability, is sometimes a long, difficult process, and the information about the vulnerability demanded by Chinese law isn’t necessarily detailed enough to immediately build such an exploit.

But the text of the law does require—somewhat vaguely—that companies provide the name, model number, and version of the affected product, as well as the vulnerability's “technical characteristics, threat, scope of impact, and so forth.” When the Atlantic Council report’s authors got access to the online portal for reporting hackable flaws, they found that it includes a required entry field for details of where in the code to “trigger” the vulnerability or a video that demonstrates “detailed proof of the vulnerability discovery process,” as well as a nonrequired entry field for uploading a proof-of-concept exploit to demonstrate the flaw. All of that is far more information about unpatched vulnerabilities than other governments typically demand or that companies generally share with their customers.

Even without those details or a proof-of-concept exploit, a mere description of a bug with the required level of specificity would provide a “lead” for China’s offensive hackers as they search for new vulnerabilities to exploit, says Kristin Del Rosso, the public sector chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm Sophos, who coauthored the Atlantic Council report. She argues the law could be providing those state-sponsored hackers with a significant head start in their race against companies’ efforts to patch and defend their systems. “It’s like a map that says, ‘Look here and start digging,’” says Del Rosso. “We have to be prepared for the potential weaponization of these vulnerabilities.”

If China’s law is in fact helping the country’s state-sponsored hackers gain a greater arsenal of hackable flaws, it could have serious geopolitical implications. US tensions with China over both the country’s cyberespionage and apparent preparations for disruptive cyberattack have peaked in recent months. In July, for instance, the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and Microsoft revealed that Chinese hackers had somehow obtained a cryptographic key that allowed Chinese spies to access the email accounts of 25 organizations, including the State Department and the Department of Commerce. Microsoft, CISA, and the NSA all warned as well about a Chinese-origin hacking campaign that planted malware in electric grids in US states and Guam, perhaps to obtain the ability to cut off power to US military bases.

Even as those stakes rise, the Atlantic Council’s Cary says he’s had firsthand conversations with one Western tech firm on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list that directly told him it was complying with China’s vulnerability disclosure law. According to Cary, the lead executive for the Chinese arm of the company—which Cary declined to name—told him that complying with the law meant that it had been forced to submit information about unpatched vulnerabilities in its products to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. And when Cary spoke to another executive of the company outside of China, that executive wasn’t aware of the disclosure.

Cary suggests that a lack of awareness of vulnerability information shared with the Chinese government may be typical for foreign companies that operate in the country. “If it’s not on executives’ radar, they don’t go around asking if they’re in compliance with the law that China just implemented,” says Cary. “They only hear about it when they’re not in compliance.”

Of the six non-Chinese firms on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list of compliant ICS technology firms, Taiwan-based D-Link gave WIRED the most direct denial, responding in a statement from its chief information security officer for North America, William Brown, that it “has never provided undisclosed product security information to the Chinese government.”

German industrial control system tech firm Phoenix Contact also denied giving China vulnerability information, writing in a statement, “We make sure that potential new vulnerabilities are handled with utmost confidentiality and by no means get into the hands of potential cyber attackers and affiliated communities wherever they are located.”

Other companies on the list said that they do report vulnerability information to the Chinese government, but only the same information provided to other governments and to customers. Swedish industrial automation firm KUKA responded that it “fulfills legal local obligations in all countries, where we operate,” but wrote that it offers the same information to its customers, publishes known vulnerability information about its products on a public website, and will comply with a similar upcoming law in the EU that requires disclosing vulnerability information. Japanese technology company Omron similarly wrote that it gives vulnerability information to the Chinese government, CISA in the US, and the Japanese Computer Emergency Response Team, as well as publishing information about known vulnerabilities on its website.

German industrial automation firm Beckhoff spelled out a similar approach in more detail. “Legislation in several nations requires that any vendor selling products in their market must inform their authorized body about security vulnerabilities prior to their publication,” wrote Torsten Förder, the company’s head of product security. “General information about the vulnerability is disclosed as further research and mitigation strategies are developing. This enables us to notify all regulatory bodies quickly, while refraining from publishing comprehensive information on how to exploit the vulnerability under investigation.”

French electric utility technology firm Schneider Electric offered the most ambiguous response. The company’s head of product vulnerability management, Harish Shankar, wrote only that “cybersecurity is integral to Schneider Electric’s global business strategy and digital transformation journey” and referred WIRED to its Trust Charter as well as the cybersecurity support portal on its website, where it releases security notifications and mitigation and remediation tips.

Given those carefully worded and sometimes elliptical responses, it’s difficult to know to exactly what degree companies are complying with China’s vulnerability disclosure law—particularly given the relatively detailed description required on the government’s web portal for uploading vulnerability information. Ian Roos, a China-focused researcher at cybersecurity R&D firm Margin Research who reviewed the Atlantic Council report prior to publication, suggests that companies might be engaging in a kind of “malicious compliance,” sharing only partial or misleading information with Chinese authorities. And he notes that even if they are sharing solid vulnerability data, it may still not be specific enough to be immediately helpful to China’s state-sponsored hackers. “It’s very hard to go from ‘there's a bug here’ to actually leveraging and exploiting it, or even knowing if it can be leveraged in a way that would be useful,” Roos says.

The law is still troubling, Roos adds, since the Chinese government has the ability to impose serious consequences on companies that don’t share as much information as it would like, from hefty fines to revocation of business licenses necessary to operate in the country. “I don’t think it’s doomsday, but it’s very bad,” he says. “I think it absolutely does create a perverse incentive where now you have private organizations that need to basically expose themselves and their customers to the adversary.”

In fact, China-based staff of foreign companies may be complying with the vulnerability disclosure law more than executives outside of China even realize, says J. D. Work, a former US intelligence official who is now a professor at National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace. (Work holds a position at the Atlantic Council, too, but wasn’t involved in Cary and Del Rosso’s research.) That disconnect isn’t just due to negligence or willful ignorance, Work adds. China-based staff might broadly interpret another law China passed last year focused on countering espionage as forbidding China-based executives of foreign firms from telling others at their own company about how they interact with the government, he says. “Firms may not fully understand changes in their own local offices’ behavior,” says Work, “because those local offices may not be permitted to talk to them about it, under pain of espionage charges.”

Sophos’ Del Rosso notes that even if companies operating in China are finding the wiggle room to avoid disclosing actual, hackable vulnerabilities in their products today, that’s still no guarantee that China won’t begin tightening its enforcement of the disclosure law in the future to close any loopholes.

“Even if people aren't complying—or if they are complying but only to a certain extent—it can only devolve and get worse,” says Del Rosso. “There’s no way they’re going to start asking for less information, or requiring less of people working there. They’ll never get softer. They’ll crack down more.”

Updated 9:20 am, September 6, 2023: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Margin Research's Ian Roos. We regret the error.

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While data is limited because many countries have stopped reporting Covid-19 data, the United Nations health agency estimated that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are currently hospitalised with the virus.

“We continue to see concerning trends for Covid-19 ahead of the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

“Deaths are increasing in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, intensive care unit admissions are increasing in Europe, and hospitalisations are increasing in several regions,” he said.

But only 43 countries – less than a quarter of the 194 WHO member states – are reporting Covid-19 deaths to the agency, and only 20 provide information about hospitalisations, he added.

“We estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of people in hospital now for Covid,” said Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19.

“That is a worry, given that when we get to colder months, in some countries, people tend to spend more time indoors together, and viruses that transmit through the air like Covid-19 will take advantage of that,” she added.

With influenza and RSV also circulating, Dr Van Kerkhove emphasised the importance of testing, as well as vaccination.

Dr Tedros said while there is not currently a single dominant Covid-19 variant worldwide, the EG.5 Omicron subvariant is on the rise.

Small numbers of the highly mutated BA.2.86 subvariant have also now been detected in 11 countries, he said.

The WHO is “monitoring this variant closely to assess its transmissibility and potential impact”, he added.

Preliminary data suggests that existing vaccines will give protection against BA.2.86, Dr Van Kerkhove said.

One of the WHO’s biggest concerns was how few at-risk people have recently received a Covid-19 jab, Dr Tedros said, calling for the vulnerable not to wait to get a booster dose.

“The increase in hospitalisations and deaths shows that Covid-19 is here to stay, and that we will continue to need tools to fight it,” he said.

Last week, the WHO announced that a global knowledge-sharing platform about Covid-19 called C-TAP has secured three new licensing agreements to transfer vaccine technologies. AFP

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While data is limited because many countries have stopped reporting COVID data, the UN health agency estimated that hundreds of thousands of people around the world were currently hospitalized with the virus.

"We continue to see concerning trends for COVID-19 ahead of the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press conference.

"Deaths are increasing in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, intensive care unit admissions are increasing in Europe and hospitalizations are increasing in several regions," he said.

But only 43 countries—less than a quarter of the 194 WHO member states —- are reporting COVID deaths to the agency, and only 20 provide information about hospitalizations, he added.

"We estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of people in hospital now for COVID," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19.

"That is a worry given that when we get to colder months, in some countries, people tend to spend more time indoors together, and viruses that transmit through the air like COVID will take advantage of that," she added.

With influenza and RSV also circulating, Van Kerkhove emphasized the importance of testing, as well as vaccination.

Tedros said while there is not currently a single dominant COVID variant worldwide, the EG.5 Omicron subvariant is on the rise.

Small numbers of the highly mutated BA.2.86 subvariant have also now been detected in 11 countries, Tedros said. The WHO is "monitoring this variant closely to assess its transmissibility and potential impact," he added.

Preliminary data suggests that existing vaccines will give protection against BA.2.86, Van Kerkhove said.

One of WHO's biggest concerns was how few at-risk people had recently received a COVID jab, Tedros said, calling for the vulnerable not to wait to get a booster dose.

"The increase in hospitalizations and deaths shows that COVID-19 is here to stay, and that we will continue to need tools to fight it," Tedros said.

Last week, the WHO announced that a global knowledge-sharing platform about COVID called C-TAP had secured three new licensing agreements to transfer vaccine technologies.

© 2023 AFP

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On Tuesday, SpaceX stacked its Starship rocket on top of a Super Heavy booster in South Texas, beginning final preparations for a second launch attempt of the massive vehicle.

 

After the stacking operations were complete, SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that "Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval."

 

That caveat is a big one because the Federal Aviation Administration is still reviewing paperwork and data from SpaceX about the first launch attempt of Starship in April 2023. That flight ended after about 90 seconds due to engine problems and other issues with the booster. The FAA has been reviewing data from that accident, including the environmental implications at the launch site and the delayed activation of the rocket's flight termination system.

 

Following this accident, SpaceX prepared and submitted a "mishap investigation report" to the FAA. After reviewing the report, the FAA will identify corrective actions that the company must make ahead of its second test flight to ensure the safety of people, property, and wildlife near the South Texas launch site, which is surrounded by wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Asked for an update on the progress of this regulatory approval, an FAA spokesman said Wednesday morning that additional information may be provided soon. If so, this story will be updated.

 

Tuesday's stacking operations followed a period of frenetic activity at the South Texas launch site this summer to prepare the ground systems and rocket for a second launch attempt. During the first flight in April, the lack of a sound suppression system led to significant damage, including the rupture of concrete chunks from the launch pad that rained down debris for miles around the Starbase location in South Texas. SpaceX subsequently has built and tested a new water deluge and flame deflector beneath the Starship launch mount.

 

The company's engineers have also worked to upgrade the interstage area between the first-stage rocket and upper-stage Starship vehicle. This is now called a "hot staging ring," which theoretically will allow the Starship upper-stage engines to ignite before the Super Heavy first stage has completed its burn. This is a difficult maneuver, but if successful, it would increase the mass-to-orbit performance of the launch vehicle.

 

In recent weeks, SpaceX has also completed two hot fire tests of the rocket, Booster 9, as well as tests of the Starship upper stage, Ship 25. The hardware has largely passed these tests.

 

During the upcoming test flight, Starship will carry no payloads but will instead seek to demonstrate the performance of the booster's 33 Raptor rocket engines, stage separation, and ignition of Starship's six engines. Under a nominal flight, Starship will complete nearly three-quarters of an orbit around Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, north of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

 

The launch date is pending regulatory approval, but it is not expected to occur before the middle of September.

 

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Though they remain low, unemployment figures have seesawed over the past six months, a phenomenon that has some tech industry experts scratching their heads trying to make sense of what may be the new norm.

Last month, unemployment in technology fields increased along with the overall US unemployment rate, which rose from 3.5% in July to 3.8% in August, according to new data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). At the same time, total nonfarm employment across all markets increased by 187,000 jobs in August.

The mixed messages in last Friday’s employment report carried over to the tech industry and workforce, according an analysis by industry group CompTIA.

Tech unemployment had dropped from 2.3% in June to 1.8% in July, as tech firms and employers in other industries added workers after a spate of high-profile layoffs in the tech industry.

The latest BLS report, however, found that employers across the US economy reduced tech occupations by an estimated 189,000 positions, pushing the unemployment rate for tech jobs up to 2.1% — almost where it was in June, CompTIA said.

“The usual caveats of monthly fluctuations in labor market data apply,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The seesawing between strong and lagging tech jobs reports is undoubtedly confusing, but the overall macro trend of growth in the depth and breadth of the tech workforce remains steady.”

Employer job postings for future tech hiring (a separate category tracked by CompTIA) totaled nearly 208,000 in August, a slight decline of 1.4% from the previous month. But job postings for information security analysts increased 19% from July to August to more than 12,000 postings. Other in-demand occupations include software developers, tech support specialists, computer systems analysts, and data scientists.

“With ‘pandemic paranoia’ about hiring lingering, companies are continuing to hold onto their workers, remembering how hard it was to rehire,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of global staffing firm ManpowerGroup’s North America Region. "Essential workers we valued through the pandemic may not be feeling so essential, as real-time job postings for blue collar roles like operations and logistics/maintenance and repair are down 43% month over month" based on ManpowerGroup’s real-time data.

“This Labor Day is a great occasion to celebrate the resilience of the American worker," she said. "Although we are seeing a slowdown, the labor market remains healthy, and we are optimistic about the future."

Positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, accounted for 23% of all tech jobs postings in August. Among emerging tech job postings, 37% were associated with AI, with California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia showing the highest numbers of AI-related job postings.

New data from IT staffing firm Experis found that an increasing number of companies surveyed are either adopting or planning to adopt emerging technologies in their recruiting processes. That comes as more than three quarters (78%) of IT organizations report difficulty finding talent with the right skills — a 17-year high.

According to Experis, 58% of employers believe AI and virtual reality will create jobs, not kill them. Additionally, cybersecurity, technical support, and customer experience remain high-priority IT staffing areas. Half of employers say they are training and upskilling their current workforce to address staffing challenges.

"The integration of AI, machine learning, VR/AR, and other emerging technologies is rapidly transforming industries and driving the need for an adaptable workforce," said Experis Senior Vice President Ger Doyle. "We are seeing companies embrace these new technologies with many seeking to hire or upskill existing talent to take advantage of potential productivity gains. Smart employers know that embracing digitization and nurturing human talent will enhance their readiness to succeed in this era of rapid technological advancement."

Table of Contents

• July 2023
• June 2023
• May 2023
• April 2023
• March 2023
• February 2023
• January 2022
• December 2022
• November 2022
• October 2022

July 2023

The unemployment rate for tech jobs dropped from 2.3% to 1.8% in July, as technology companies and employers in other industry sectors added workers, according to analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

It was the lowest tech-sector unemployment rate since January, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

The overall US unemployment rate also dropped slightly last month from 3.6% in June to 3.5%, according to BLS data. About 187,000 non-farm jobs were added, less than the average monthly gain of 312,000 over the prior 12 months. In July, jobs grew in healthcare, social assistance, financial activities, and wholesale trade, according to the BLS.

The overall unemployment rate has ranged from 3.4% to 3.7% since March 2022.

According to BLS data, employment in professional, scientific, and technical services continued to trend up in July with 24,000 positions filled.

Tech sector companies increased their staffing by 5,432 employees, according to CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data. Leading the way in new IT hires were custom software services and systems design;and PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing.

IT salaries were on the rise, too, according to a mid-year analysis by business consultancy Janco Associates, as more companies invested in IT. The emphasis in recent years has been on both e-commerce and mobile computing. And with growing numbers of cyberattacks and data breaches, CIOs are looking to harden their sites and lock down data access to protect all of their electronic assets, according to Janco Associates.

The lone drag on the July data was in employer job postings for tech occupations, which slipped to from 236,000 in June to 204,400 for the month of July.

“Given the pace of tech hiring, it remains a fairly tight market for tech talent,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer for CompTIA, said in a statement. “It continues to be an environment where employers must supplement recruiting efforts with proactive talent development strategies.”

While the drop in tech sector unemployment is notable, it’s not uncommon for rates to fluctuate, according to Herbert. Over the past 5.5 years dating back t0 January 2018, the tech unemployment rate saw a 1/2-point or higher rise or fall from the previous month 27 times, which translates to 40% of the time, he said in an email to Computerworld.

In comparison, the national unemployment saw the same kind of variation 22 times, or 33% of the time. Herbert said.

“Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide data at a granular enough level to pinpoint the exact tech occupation categories driving changes in the unemployment rate,” Herbert said. "The employer job posting data indicates hiring activity is broad-based spanning all the major job families within tech."

The way the BLS tracks job seekers also matters; it only keeps tabs on people actively looking for employment, Herbert noted.

“There could be scenarios whereby certain segments of workers go uncounted in the unemployment rate because they put their job search on pause — perhaps to re-evaluate their job search strategy, to pursue additional training, to recharge their batteries, etc.,” he said. “This could have the effect of artificially lowering the unemployment rate.”

There is a difference, however, between the long-term unemployed who might lack skills demanded in the labor market and those who voluntarily put a job search on hold. “My sense is tech workers in this position tend to fall in the latter category given most have in demand skills,” Herbert added.

Janco Associates painted a somewhat gloomier picture of the IT jobs landscape: it said that year to date, IT jobs shrank by 5,500 positions. That's in contrast to 125,900 jobs created during the same period of 2022.

The number of unfilled jobs for IT pros shrank from more than 200,000 in December to just over 120,000 at the end of July, Janco’s latest report showed. It argued that the growth of the IT job market stopped in January, with a loss of 2,600 positions, with other losses piling up in succeeding months.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best,” Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis said in a statement.

In the second quarter of 2023, the “big losers” were computer system design jobs (down 10,500); telecommunications (down 5,500);  content providers (down 4,700); and other information service providers (down 6,600). Janulaitis said.

Many roles, especially in telecommunications and cloud providers are being automated and eliminated, he said. CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible and focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers, staff, and services.

"Experienced coders and developers still have opportunities. The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT Pros," Janulaitis said.

As part of an effort to boost return on investment, CIOs are looking to consolidate the cloud service providers they support.

"This will impact the job prospects at those providers," Janulaitis said. “There continues to be a general belief there will be an economic downturn by many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IT pros and increasing technology-related expenditures. This has impacted the salaries of IT pros with a major impact on the compensation of IT executives."

Meanwhile, according to CompTIA, the strongest demand was for software developers and engineers, IT project managers, data analysts, IT support specialists and emerging technologies. Positions in emerging technologies or jobs that require emerging tech skills accounted for about 23% of all tech job postings in July.

Within the emerging tech category, 35% of job postings referenced artificial intelligence (AI) work and skills, CompTIA said. 

June 2023

IT workers are well positioned to not only keep their jobs but to get big bumps in pay when looking for new opportunities, according to analysis of jobs data released today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Overall, the US unemployment rate dropped slightly from 3.7% in May to 3.6% in June, with about 206,000 jobs added, according to the BLS. The number of jobs added last month was down 100,000 from May.

Wages also increased as employers continued to struggle to find workers. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees grew 4.4% in June over the same period last year to $28.83, according to the BLS.

Tech sector companies increased headcount by 5,348 jobs last month, according to an analysis of BLS data by industry group CompTIA. Among the six top tech occupation categories, three have shown positive gains through the first half of 2023: IT and custom software services and systems design; PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing; and cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting.

Overall, however, tech occupations throughout the economy declined by an estimated 171,000, according to CompTIA. The unemployment rate for tech jobs edged up from 2% to 2.3%, still well below the national unemployment figure.

Software developers were in particularly in high demand, according to CompTIA. Job openings had dropped by more than 2,700 positions in May, but in June software development positions rose by more than 15,700 openings. Job openings for IT project managers and data scientists also lept in June, up by 8,633 and 3,929, respectively.

Other IT positions that saw marked increases included system analysts, IT support specialists, web developers, cybersecurity analysts and engineers, and database adminitrators, according to CompTIA.

Overall, tech-related employment mirrored June’s overall easing of the labor market nationally, CompTIA said. Tech occupations throughout the economy fell back and job postings for future hiring were down modestly, with jobs offering remote/hybrid work arrangements falling off even as opportunities to work with artificial intelligence rose in the emerging job market.

“The latest tech employment figures do lag some, but the underlying fundamentals remain unchanged. All signs point to a continuation of the growth trajectory for the tech workforce," Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA, said in a statement.

Ahead of the BLS jobs report, HR software provider ADP released its own jobs report Thursday saying private sector jobs surged by 497,000 in June, well ahead of the 267,000 gain in May and much higher than the 220,000 analysts had estimated.

“According to the Department of Labor, [ADP's] numbers were way off,” said Jamie Kohn, senior director of human resources research at Gartner. “I do think we’re seeing a slight slowdown in jobs at the moment, but there’s such a shortage of talent, companies are trying to keep up.”

Employment rates for prime age workers — 18- to 54-year-olds — is back to pre-Covid numbers and companies are reticent to make further cuts even as economists continue to chirp about a possible recession.

“We have data that shows on median, people are getting a 15% increase when they move from one job to another,” Kohn said. “They’re actually getting higher pay bumps than they thought they would.” On average, most job seekers expect an 8% increase in pay in a new job, according to a new Gartner survey.

Another trend putting pressure on the job market is an increasing number of Baby Boomer retirements, leaving management positions and other senior jobs unfilled.

“We’re about half way through Baby Boomer [generation] retirement. The market is likely to get tighter as the latter half of the Baby Boomer generation retires over the next decade or so. Some people also retired early during and coming out of the pandemic,” Kohn said. “I’m hearing from a lot of HR leaders who are trying to figure out how to convince people to delay retirement because they’re finding it hard to find people.”

IT workers in particular are in demand, Kohn said. The Gartner survey showed 78% of job market candidates have multiple offers on the table. That compares to overall job seekers, 72% of whom had multiple job offers.

While organizations across all US industries are expected to boost hiring in the third quarter, employers in the IT market have the most aggressive hiring plans, according to global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

Unmet demand for talent is highest in IT-related fields, with 78% of employers in IT reporting challenges in hiring, according to an earlier report from ManpowerGroup. This suggests that tech workers who find themselves laid off will soon be reabsorbed into the market.

ManpowerGroup’s real-time data is showing plentiful opportunities in logistics, job openings grew 25% this quarter, sales and business development were up 10%, medical (up 9%) and finance (up 8%).

“We’re seeing the relationship between employers and workers continue to evolve, particularly for workers with in-demand skills,” Becky Frankiewicz, ManpowerGroup's regional president and chief commercial officer, said. “As ‘pandemic paranoia’ about hiring lingers, companies are holding on to their workers as layoffs calm and permanent roles are more in demand than temporary.”

Hybrid work is also on the uptick, with all industries offering more remote/hybrid roles month-over-month and tech remote work up 34%-40% in June, according to ManpowerGroup. And as the relentless advance of AI continues, employers are betting on people. Companies are investing in the talent and skills they have in house, with organizations re-skilling and up-skilling more than ever.

After some high-profile layoffs by tech companies this year and last, many IT workers are seeking employment in industries they consider more stable, such as financial services, according to Kohn.

Workforce participation by women remains lower than for men. A key reason for that is US employers are not as generous with flexible work, paid maternal leave and childcare assistance as their European counterparts.

“If you have to spend half or more of your income for childcare, no reason to go back to work,” Kohn said, adding that what’s needed is an overhaul of worker benefits rights by the federal government. Another wrinkle: US immigration has seen steep declines — even before the pandemic — further reducing the chance for a glut in job openings.

May 2023

Like April before it, the month of May showed mixed results for tech employment in the US.

Technology companies shed an estimated 4,725 jobs — a figure that includes nontechnical workers — in May, according to an analysis of the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures by IT industry group CompTIA. Job postings for open technology positions also eased off, down to about 234,000 from April’s 300,000, according to a new report from CompTIA.

At the same time, however, the number of technology jobs throughout the economy rose by 45,000, according to the report.

Those mixed results for the tech workforce reflect the unpredictability of the overall labor market. US employers added a stronger-than-expected 339,000 jobs in May, but the overall US unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage points to hit 3.7%, while the number of unemployed people rose by 440,000 to reach 6.1 million, according to BLS data released today.

Responding to the BLS data, global staffing firm ManpowerGroup also commented on the mixed results for tech pros: “Our data shows cooling in IT, with posted roles down 12% compared to last month. Yet those let go are being quickly reabsorbed, often into midsize companies.”

Indeed, while the national unemployment rate has ranged between 3.4% and 3.7% since March 2022, the unemployment rate for tech occupations has hovered near 2% throughout that time frame. In fact, tech unemployment decreased slightly in May, from 2.1% to 2.0%, according to CompTIA’s analysis of the BLS data.

“Reassuringly, the positives for the month outweigh the negatives, confirming the tech workforce remains on solid footing,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA.

The most in-demand roles among tech job postings include software developers and engineers; IT project managers, data analysts, and other emerging tech roles; IT support specialists; systems analysts and engineers; and data scientists. Approximately 20% of job postings are in emerging tech fields or require emerging tech skills, including nearly 15,000 postings that mention AI skills, according to CompTIA.

April 2023

Technology companies added 18,795 workers in April, the largest number since August 2022, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures and an industry analysis of that information.

The data revealed a mixed bag of results for tech workers last month. Technology jobs throughout the economy declined by 99,000 positions even as employer job postingspassed 300,000 — a level last reached in October, according to a report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

Both the overall US unemployment rate, at 3.4%, and the number of unemployed, at 5.7 million, changed little in April, according to BLS data released today. The national unemployment rate has ranged between 3.4% and 3.7% since March 2022.

The unemployment rate for tech occupations inched up to 2.3% in April from 2.2% in March, still well below the national unemployment rate, according to CompTIA’s evaluation.

“It was another all-too-familiar month of mixed labor market signals,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The surprisingly strong tech sector employment gains were offset by the pause in tech hiring across the economy.”

Still, IT executives and managers are among the most highly paid workers in US corporations, according to a new report based on the latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

A BLS report published last last month — the Occupational Employment and Wages Summary for 2022 — showed computer and information research scientists earn on average about $155,880 a year. Database architects are the second-highest earners with just over $136,540 in annual compensation. Software developers followed at $132,000 a year.

Putting upward pressure on wages has been a combination of scarce tech talent and low unemployement rates.

Computer and IT managers are among the most highly paid positions in the US, earning an average $173,670 across all industries and occupations; that’s even more than the top executives in all industries and occupations ($129,050), according to business consultancy Janco Associate.

In terms of employment in the tech industry, software developers held just over 1.5 million positions in the US, more than double the 700,000 positions held by computer user support specialists. Computer systems analysts, with 500,000 jobs, were in third place, according to Janco's report.

Late last month, job search website Lensa published a research study showing “computer occupations” are among the most in-demand jobs in the US, second only to “health diagnostic and treatment practitioners.” More than 3.1 million potential applicants clicked on open job positions in the IT arena, according to Lensa.

Overall, the number of workers not in the labor force who currently want a job increased by 346,000 over the month to 5.3 million, according to the BLS. “These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job,” the BLS said.

Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.6%, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.4%, were unchanged in April. These measures remain below their pre-pandemic February 2020 levels, 63.3%and 61.1%, respectively.

Global Staffing firm ManpowerGroup viewed the BLS data from April as a “promise of spring” for the job market, with a higher-than-expected 253,000 jobs added.

Employers continue to hire for in-demand skills while pulling back on non-essential headcount, the company said in a statement to Computerworld. The company also noted some negative trends that emerged with the BLS’s revisions to its March data showing 100,000 fewer jobs, “and the three-month average is tracking down."

“Today, we’re seeing very concentrated demand with medical, IT, and sales representing 44% of all open positions,” Becky Frankiewicz. president of ManpowerGroup North America said. “That data includes all real-time available jobs across the country. [Job] openings are the lowest they’ve been in two years.”

Employers listed more than 300,000 job postings for tech positions in April, signaling demand for tech talent continues to hold up, according to CompTIA. In March, there were 316,000 tech job openings.

Within the tech sector, three occupation categories paced April hiring, led by IT services and custom software development (+12,700 additional jobs). Job gains were also reported in cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting (+7,300 additional jobs) and PC, semiconductor and components manufacturing (+3,200 additional jobs).

Employer job postings for tech positions were widely dispersed geographically and by industry. Employers in administrative and support (32,861), finance and insurance (32,820) and manufacturing (31,959) were among the most active last month.

The number of tech job postings that specify remote work or hybrid work arrangements as an option continued to trend upward in April, with more than 65,000 positions across the country; software developers, IT project managers, data analysts and jobs in emerging technologies topped the list

Among metropolitan markets, Washington, DC, New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago had the highest volumes of tech job postings. And Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle saw the largest month-over-month increases in postings, according to CompTIA.

March 2023

Tech sector employment, which includes all workers on the payrolls of tech companies, declined in March by an estimated 839 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and IT industry group CompTIA.

Employer job postings for tech positions for March, however, increased by 76,546 month-over-month, for a total of 316,000 openings; the tech unemployment rate remained unchanged from February at 2.2%.

Technology employment across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 197,000 positions for the month, according to CompTIA’s analysis of BLS data. “This represents the highest level of employer hiring activity as measured by job postings in seven months,” CompTIA said in its Tech Jobs Report.

More than 4.18 million people are now employed as IT professionals in the US, according to industry research firm Janco Associates.

“As a forward-looking indicator, the rebound in employer tech job postings is a notable positive,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer.

“While caution is in order given the state of uncertainty, the data suggests segments of employers may be stepping back into the tech talent market.”

Overall, the US economy added 236,000 jobs in March, according to the BLS, a slight slowdown compared to recent months; that could mean the jobs market may be responding to recent interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.

At the same time the number of jobs being added to the economy dropped slightly, the overall unemployment rate dipped a tenth of a point to 3.5%, remaining near 50-year historic lows.

The total number of unemployed US workers, at 5.8 million, changed little in March; that measure has shown little net movement since early 2022, according to BLS data.

“The labor market posted solid if not spectacular gains,” Diane Swonk, chief economist and managing director at KPMG LLP, wrote in a blog post.  “Hiring in both the public and the private sectors slowed. Hiring by firms with less than 250 workers continues to drive gains in the private sector. 

Those firms are the most vulnerable to the recent tightening of credit conditions,”

Even as unemployment remains low, there have been a number of high-profile layoffs in the technology industry and elsewhere during the past six or so months; industry experts have said many organizations over-hired during the COVID-19 pandemic and are now having to trim their workforces, a so-called “course correction."

This year, more than 168,000 workers have been laid off at tech firms, according to industry tracker Layoffs.fyi.

Last month, job search site Indeed fired 15% of its workforce, or about 2,200 employees. The layoffs came from nearly every team and function within the company, CEO Chris Hyams said, and were in response to a job market that has cooled “after the recent post-COVID boom,” he said.

“US total job openings were down 3.5% year-over-year, while sponsored job volumes were down 33%," Hyams said. "In the US, we are expecting job openings will likely decrease to pre-pandemic levels of about 7.5 million, or even lower over the next two to three years.”

While big tech firms such as Google and Microsoft may be letting workers go, the layoffs aren't dominated by IT talent. Most of the layoffs are occurring on the business side of the corporate world. In fact, there are fewer IT workers than job openings — a lot fewer.

Positions for software developers and engineers accounted for the largest share of job postings in March, according to CompTIA. Employers are also in the market for IT support specialists, systems engineers and analysts, IT project managers, cybersecurity analysts, and engineers. About one in five tech job postings offer remote or hybrid work arrangements as an option.

A new report from global staffing firm ManpowerGroup found that 77% of employers report difficultly filling job roles, representing a 17-year talent shortage high.

James Neave, head of data science at job search site Adzuna, said despite the latest spate of layoffs, which include Apple and Walmart, job growth has exceeded expectations for 12 consecutive months, “the longest streak since 1998.

“Today’s closely watched jobs report gives another healthy reading on the job market and the strength of hiring,” he said invia email to Computerworld.

On Adzuna, advertised job vacancies in the U.S. totalled 8.3 million in March. As a result, organizations need to continue working to attract and retain highly qualified talent amid shortages and skills gaps, Neave said.

“To win workers, organizations are improving their benefits and providing care for the whole person in such a stressful economic time,” he said. “Boosting benefit offerings also helps to slow staff turnover and reduce the risk of burnout, improving morale as well as the bottom line.” 

February 2023

Tech sector employment fell by 11,184 positions in February, a modest reduction of 0.2% of the total tech industry workforce of more than 5.5 million.

Unemployment in the tech sector also jumped from 1.5% in January to 2.2%, in February, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

The unemployment rate for tech occupations is still below the national rate of 3.6%, which saw a .1% increase from January.

The number of technology occupations in all industries declined by .6% or 38,000 positions, according to CompTIA’s report. Tech occupations in the US economy still total more than 6.4 million workers. Among all tech industries, tech manufacturing added a net new 2,800 jobs, the fifth consecutive month of positive gains.

Employer job postings for tech positions also declined by about 40,000, to just over 229,000 in February. Most metropolitan markets experienced fallbacks from January to February, with a few exceptions, according to CompTIA.

“As expected, the lag in labor market data means prior layoffs announcements are now appearing in BLS reporting,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer for  CompTIA. “Context is critical. The recent pullback represents a relatively small fraction of the massive tech workforce. The long-term outlook remains unchanged with demand for tech talent powering employment gains across the economy.”

While there have been hundreds of highly publicized layoffs among tech companies, the vast majority of employees being fired are not in IT positions, according to industry analysts. In fact, there remains a dearth in tech talent to fill more than 145,000 IT job openings. 

IT consultancy Janco Associates offered a somewhat more pessimistic view of the IT job market.

“Layoffs, for the most part, did not hit developers. Rather they were focused on data center operations, administrative and HR roles related to recruiting, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Some roles, especially in telecommunications and data center operations are being automated and eliminated," Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. "Driving this is CIOs and CFOs who are looking to improve the productivity of IT by automating processes and reporting where possible. They are focusing on eliminating non-essential managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers."

The highest demand, Janulaitis said, continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT professionals. Other industry research shows data analysts and AI professionals are also in high demand. 

“The general belief there will be an economic downturn is high for many CIOs and CFOs. This is impacting all decisions around hiring new IP pros and increasing technology-related expenditures," Janulaitis said.

In 2022, 267,000 new jobs were added to the IT market. Those new jobs were in addition to the 213,000 jobs created in 2021.

In 2023, while there are more jobs being added, that number is declining. In January, for example, for the first time in 25 months, there was a net loss in the number of jobs in the IT Job Market. That trend is continuing, Janco said. In the first two months of 2023, the IT job market shrank by 44,900 jobs.

"CIOs and CFOs have started to slow the rate of creating new IT jobs and hiring IT professionals," Janco said in its report. "The three month moving average for IT job market growth trend for IT professionals shows a significant downward trend. Inflation and recessionary trends are driving this."

Layoffs and economic uncertainty drove CIOs and CFOs to slow IT hiring in February, according to Janulaitis.

"Layoffs at big tech companies are having an adverse on overall IT hiring. More CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations,"Janulaitis said.

The growth of the IT job market stopped with a decline of 10,000 jobs in January and 13,400 jobs in February, according to Janco. That was the first loss in the number of IT Pros employed in over 27 months. The three-month moving average of IT job market growth went negative with a trend line that shows a further decay in IT job market growth."

Overall US employment rose by 311,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. That was vastly higher than the 225,000 jobs predicted by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. In January, about half a million jobs were added, according to BLS data.

The number of people quitting jobs (3.9 million) decreased, in February, while layoffs and other firings (1.7 million) increased. Even with the unemployment rate ticking up slightly, are still nearly two jobs (10.8 million) for every unemployed worker (5.9 million), according to a BLS data. In 2022, the annual average number of job openings was 11.2 million.

Last month, U.S. consumer spending also rose to its highest level in over nearly two years.

Across all industries, the number of people who were without jobs for a short period of time (less than 5 weeks) increased by 343,000 to 2.3 million in February, offsetting a decrease in the prior month. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), changed little in February and accounted for 17.6% of the total unemployed or 1.1 million people.

Job postings for technology positions rose the most in scientific and tech services industry sector (35,257), finance and insurance (24,735) and manufacturing (20,246).

Overall, in the US job market, the average hourly earnings grew 4.6% year-over-year, which was down from last year but above the pre-pandemic pace, BLS data showed.

The ongoing tech talent shortage also lifted IT salaries, but future pay increases will be less than expected, according to Janco Associates.

On average, IT salaries rose by 5.61% in 2022 and were expected to increase by as much as 8% this year, according to earlier reports by Janco. 

"Many CIOs' 2023 IT budgets planned to increase salaries for IT pros to address the inflationary pressures faced by employees are now being reviewed," Janulaitis said. "Given these facts, we believe that median salaries for IT pros in 2023 will be 3% to 4% salary above 2022 levels, not the 7% to 8% that was budgeted.” 

The mean compensation for all IT pros in 2023 is now $101,323; for IT pros in large enterprises it tops $102,000; and for executives it averages $180,000.

"Companies that do not live up to employees’ expectations may find that even if they are able to get candidates in the door, those candidates leave as soon as a better offer comes along," Gartner Research analyst Mbula Schoen wrote in a Q&A post this week.. "Additionally, there are increasingly opportunities for IT jobs outside traditional tech companies, so it’s important to look beyond just the tech provider community to truly grasp the state of the tech talent crunch.”

January 2022

The unemployment rate in the technology job market decreased for the second month in a row, dropping to 1.5% in January from 1.8% in December.

Even with the marked drop in unemployment, it was a mixed bag for the technology marketplace, after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its January jobs report on Friday. There was a decline in current employment and an increase in employer job postings for potential future hiring, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

While the overall US unemployment rate dropped to a figure not seen since 1969 (to 3.4%, from 3.5% a month earlier), the number of technology workers hired in January fell into negative territory for the first time in more than two years. Technology occupations throughout the economy declined by 32,000 for the month, representing a reduction of -0.5%, according to CompTIA. Technology companies also shed 2,489 positions in January, according to CompTIA.

Overall, however, the US added 517,000 jobs in January, according to BLS numbers.

The BLS also said on Friday it had significantly revised its November data, describing it as a “major revision reflecting content and coding changes.”

In November 2022, the BLS indicated U.S. technology companies added approximately 2,500 net new jobs versus the mistakenly reported decrease of 151,900 jobs in earlier reporting.

“The change materially affects the sub-sector of tech companies providing search and platform services, while the revisions were a net positive for sub-sectors such as IT services and data,” CompTIA said.

ComTIA also uses employer online job posting data to predict the number of job postings for future tech hiring, and that number reversed last month’s dip and increased by 22,408 to 268,898 for 2023.

The fact that the unemployment rate in the tech market still dropped in January indicates many laid off workers were re-hired and absorbed back into the labor market, according to CompTIA. The tech unemployment rate is also an indication that many of the layoffs occurring within technology organizations are non-technical workers, such as sales, marketing or related business support positions.

Among industries, the highest volumes of job postings for tech positions were reported in the professional, scientific and technical services (40,712), finance and insurance (30,576) and manufacturing (24,269) sectors.

“Despite the unusual backward revision by the BLS and the routine fluctuations in monthly labor market data, much of the big picture tech employment picture remains the same,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA said in a statement. “Undoubtedly, some companies over- hired and are now scaling back. The low tech unemployment rate and steady hiring activity by employers confirms the long-term demand for tech talent across many sectors of the economy.”

While tech companies shed employees over the past few months in highly publicized reports, overall, 2022 saw an increase of about 264,500 new jobs to the IT job Market, according to IT industry consultancy Janco Associates.  Those new jobs were in addition to the 213,000 jobs created in 2021. 

In January, the growth of the IT job market stopped with a decline of 4,700 jobs.  That was the first loss in over 27 months, according to Janco. The three-month moving average of IT job market growth went negative with a trend line that shows a further decay in IT job market growth. At the same time, there is an excess of 109,000 unfilled jobs for IT Pros due to a lack of qualified candidates.

A lack of qualified candidates has lead to increased demand for tech workers raising overall salaries for all IT positions by 5.6%, with small-and-medium-sized businesses seeing an average increase of 7.74% increase, with their median compensation increasing to $100,434 as reported in Janco’s 2023 IT Salary Survey.

U.S.-based employers announced 102,943 cuts in January, a 136% increase from the 43,651 cuts announced in December, according to global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. That's 440% higher than the 19,064 cuts announced in the same month in 2022, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas's report. Forty-one percent of January’s job cuts were in tech.

Yet demand for those to fill jobs requiring tech skills is rising.

"That’s a ton of expertise missing from an industry that needs the brightest to get brighter," said Vince Padua, CTO at Axway, a tech company that sells an API management platform.

And it’s going to get worse, he added, as 86% IT leaders expect an expertise gap increase in coming years.

“As cloud computing, AI and microservices are developed and adopted, the skills required to support them constantly evolve," Padua said.

"Companies need more employees with the right skills and experience – plus IT infrastructure and enterprise software experts with specialized skills in cybersecurity, data analytics and cloud architecture."

IT jobs took the top spot in a list of the 25 best jobs in the US, according to online job site Indeed. The top job slot went to full stack developer, which offers a median annual salary of $130,000 and allows for a mostly remote or hybrid workplace.

Eight tech jobs were among the top 10 positions on Indeed’s list this year; that compares with just two tech jobs in the top 10 on last year’s list. In 2022, tech jobs were moving down the top jobs list; now, a year later, tech jobs are surging upward. This year, 11 of the top 25 jobs, or 44%, were tech positions. By comparison, in 2022, just 25% of the top 25 jobs were tech-related.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are there but not in as broad in scope as in 2022. Layoffs, for the most part, did not hit developers.  Rather they were focused on data center operations, administrative and HR roles related to recruiting, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion),” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis.

Some roles, especially in telecommunications and data center operations are being automated and eliminated, Janulaitis noted, but those operations will continue to hire coders and developers.

The highest demand continues to be for security professionals, programmers, and blockchain processing IT professionals, according to Janco. Currently, there are over 109,000 unfilled jobs in the IT job market -- a drop from 216,000 in November.

Janulaitis blamed continued concern over a possible recession as one reason organizations are eliminating jobs.

“More CIOs are looking at a troubling economic climate and are evaluating the need for increased headcounts based on the technological requirements of their specific business operations,” Janulaitis said.

According to the latest BLS data analyzed by Janco, there are now just over 4.2 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US., and layoffs at big tech companies are having an adverse on overall IT hiring.

“The possibility of the economic downturn is very likely and is impacting all decisions that increase technology-related expenditures. Work from home is being minimized as companies are requiring employees to be in the office at least 3 to 4 days a week,” Janulaitis said. “Mid-level managers are now having to justify most positions where the IT Pro is not working in the office.  Companies that are forced to hire replacements, do so with the caveat that payroll costs remain flat. “

The 2023 IT budgets increased salaries for IT pros to address inflationary pressures faced by employees.  Those are now being reviewed. Given those facts, Janco believes that median salaries for IT Pros in 2023 will be 3-4% salary above 2022 levels, not the 7% to 8% that was budgeted at the end of 2022.

“With this as a background, Janco has just revised downward its forecast for the growth of the IT Job Market in 2023 to just over 160,000 from 174,000 new jobs,” Janulaitis said. “That will be less growth than in 2021 and 2022 but still at high levels.”

December 2022

Even as some high-profile layoffs have lead the news over the past few months, the US added 223,000 jobs in December, including 17,600 positions at tech companies, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other research.

Technology job gains were recorded in four of five sector categories. It’s the 25th straight month of net employment growth in the tech industry, according to a report by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

The overall US unemployment rate dropped from 3.7% in November 2022 to 3.5% in December, according to BLS data. In the technology sector, the unemployment rate dropped from 2% in November to 1.8% in December, according to CompTIA.

“Another wave of positive tech employment data speaks to the many moving parts of a complex labor market,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Despite the layoffs there continues to be more employers hiring tech talent than shedding it.”

CompTIA’s analysis also showed that 30% of all tech jobs postings are for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, or in roles requiring emerging tech skills.

Within the tech sector, three occupation categories lead December hiring: IT services and custom software development (+7,200 jobs), other information services, including search engines (+6,600 jobs) and data processing, hosting and related services (+5,600 jobs).

The positive news was countered by a second consecutive month of lower employer job postings for future tech hiring. Future tech hiring is one metric CompTIA uses to predict how many job openings will be available over the next year. Future tech hiring declined for the second consecutive month, but still totaled more than 246,000 in December, down from 270,000 in November, 2022.

Also, the organization cautioned, recent layoff announcements by technology companies may not show up immediately in government reports, such as today’s BLS “employment situation” report, a CompTIA spokesperson said.

In spite of that, in the first quarter of 2023, the IT industry will lead all others in hirings, according to a new report from global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

While companies are expected to hire fewer technology workers this quarter than the previous one (6% less) or even Q1, 2022 (14% less), ManpowerGroup’s survey of just under 39,000 employers in 41 countries revealed overall there will be a 23% increase in hiring.

When considering how staffing levels will change during the first quarter, employers in 39 of 41 countries and territories surveyed anticipate a net positive hiring outlook, the report stated.

Organizations in the IT industry reported the most optimistic outlook for Q1, 2023 with an expected 35% increase in hiring; that was followed by Financials & Real Estate (28%), and Energy & Utilities (+26%).

Geographically, North American organizations expect to increase hiring by 31%; US organizations expect a 29% increase in hiring and Canadian organizations expect at 34% increase. Large organizations with more than 250 are more than twice as optimistic as small businesses (with less than 10 employees) to hire in the coming quarter with outlooks of 29% and 13%, respectively.

Wanting to hire is one thing and actually being able to find tech talent is another. Currently, there is a dearth of tech talent available.

Despite strong optimism to hire, the industry faces a talent shortage where 76% of IT industry employers report difficulty finding the hard and soft skills needed, according to ManpowerGroup’s survey.

“This recovery is unlike any we have ever seen [and] demand for skills is at record highs in many markets, and unemployment levels remain high while workforce participation stagnates,” the report said.

Because of the lack of available talent, the lead time for filling an open IT position is now several months, according to a new report by business consultancy Janco Associates.

“If the position to be filled is a replacement for some who has left the enterprise, training time has to be factored in. This is just one of the issues faced by CIOs,” Janco stated in its 2023 IT Salary Survey, which included interviews more than 142 CIOs, CFOs, and HR professionals to identify key CIO staffing Issues

Organizations have addressed hiring challenges by removing college degree requirements from job postings and by creating apprenticeship programs to train new candidates.

“With the limited labor supply of IT professionals, every hiring mistake is magnified,” Janco’s report stated.

In Janco’s review of hiring failures based on survey responses, it found two factors that stood out over others. Interpersonal issues associated with these failures (29%) and poor corporate culture fit (28%) with the others. Those issues, Janco argued, can mostly be filtered out during the recruiting and interviewing process.

November 2022

For two straight years, the technology sector has added jobs every month.

In November, US tech companies added 14,400 workers, and tech jobs in all industry sectors grew by 137,000 positions, according to a new report from CompTIA

While the needle on overall US unemployment remained unchanged in November at 3.7%, for the technology sector it dropped to 2% from 2.2% in October, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures compiled by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

So far this year, tech industry jobs grew by 207,000 positions, according to BLS data.

“The hotter-than-anticipated tech jobs report confirms there are still many more employers hiring tech talent than shedding it,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer. “It’s certainly premature to dismiss concerns over the health of the economy, but this should be a reassuring sign for the tech workforce.”

The growth in the tech sector belies an economy beset by high inflation and what many still believe is an impending recession. And although inflation slowed to 7.7%, it is still well over the 2% target set by policymakers at the Federal Reserve Bank.

In November, nearly a dozen big name companies announced layoffs — some in the thousands, including Amazon, Cisco and HP. But experts believe the targeted layoffs, which have been ongoing over the past three months, are mostly a result of poor hiring strategies.

Due to a dearth of tech talent over the past two years, companies rushed to hire, bringing in a raft of tech workers with seven to 10 years' experience and highly specialized skills.

On top of that, the companies tended to pay two to three times more than what they would have for someone with less experience but with the right education, aptitude, and attitude to be part of a sustainable workforce, according to Tony Lysak, CEO of The Software Institute, which offers IT consulting and education services.

“We need them, and can’t get them, so let’s pay more,” said Lysak, summing up how many companies have approached hiring during the past two years.

According to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates, the latest BLS data shows there are now just shy of four million jobs for IT professionals in the US. Janco sees this trend of IT jobs increases continuing but at a slower pace in the future. Layoffs will continue as companies seek to improve productivity levels.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive but not as broad in scope as in the first three quarters of this calendar year," Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a statement. “CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT.

They are focusing on eliminating 'non-essential' managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers. The highest demand continues to be for programmers, blockchain processing, and security professionals. There still are over 200K unfilled jobs in the IT job market.”

IT salaries for existing IT staff and middle managers increased by just under 3% while new hires were paid 5% to 6% more than existing staff, according to Janco's Mid Year 2022 IT Salary Survey. “In conversation with several CIOs, we observed that starting pay rates for new hires were in the 8% to 10% range a few months back, but this is not the case currently,” Janulaitis said.

November hiring by technology companies was broad-based across occupation categories, led by IT services and custom software development (+8,100). Employment growth also occurred in data processing, hosting and related services (+4,100), other information services, including search engines (+2,100), and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+1,900).

Employer job postings for future tech hiring fell back in November, but still totaled nearly 270,000. Openings for software developers and engineers accounted for about 28% of all tech jobs postings. Demand for IT support specialists, systems engineers, IT project managers, and network engineers was also solid.

While major tech hubs recorded the largest numbers of job postings for tech positions, ‘under the radar’ markets showed notable increases in employment opportunities, including Topeka, Kan.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Worcester, Mass.; and Riverside, Calif. Among industries, the professional, scientific, and technical services sector had the most tech job postings (41,188), followed by finance and insurance (35,132) and manufacturing (31,036).

CompTIA’s analysis also showed 30% of all tech jobs postings are for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, or in roles that require emerging tech skills.

Janco's report also shows corporate executives are challenged by inflation and the economic downturn. Those executives are reluctant to hire replacement employees at salaries that are significantly higher than those who left as part of the Great Resignation. In their 2023 salary budgets for IT pros, "CIOs are trying to address the inflationary pressures faced by employees. We believe that starting salaries for IT Pros in 2023 will be 6% to 7% salary above existing levels," Janulaitis said.

October 2022

Tech firms in October hired between 15,300 and 20,700 workers (depending on who's doing the counting), marking roughly two straight years of hiring growth in the industry, according to two new employment reports.

So far this year, tech industry employment has increased by 193,900 jobs, 28% higher than the same period in 2021, according to a jobs report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce. 

In contrast, technology job postings by tech and non-tech companies had been on a five-month downward slide until last month. Tech workers employed throughout the economy, regardless of industry, declined by 116,000 last month, according to CompTIA. CompTIA's report is based on the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

“The data is roughly in line with expectations,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “Tech hiring activity remains steady, but there are undoubtedly concerns of a slowing economy.”

In October, the number of tech workers employed throughout all industries grew by 10,000 over the previous month, according to CompTIA.

Most of the issues affecting the economy are due to supply chain problems, according to Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, which also released its IT jobs report on Friday.

“If China opens up and supply chains will improve, that should lessen the recessionary pressures that are driving the tech giants to reduce staff,” Janulaitis said in a statement. "Also, the results of the election in the US will provide an opportunity to improve the economic climate."

Tech job postings reflect the total of “help wanted” ads companies listed last month. There were 317,000 such postings in October, according to CompTIA. It was the first time since April 2022 that the number of job postings increased over the prior month.

CompTIA also noted that tech manufacturing employment is up 43% compared to the same period last year.

While the tech industry unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 2.2% in October from 2.1% in September, it remained well below the overall US unemployment rate, according to CompTIA’s report. The overall US unemployment rate also ticked up to 3.7% in October.

CompTIA’s jobs report differs somewhat from Janco Associates's figures. Janco reported 15,300 new hires by tech companies in October; that compares to 13,700 job listings added by the tech industry the previous month.

There are now a total of 3.98 million jobs for IT professionals in the US, according to the BLS data analyzed by Janco.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the first three quarters of 2022,” Janulaitis said in a statement. “CIOs and CFOs are looking to improve the productivity of IT.  That means they are focusing on eliminating “non-essential” managers and staff. They will continue to hire coders and developers.”

The highest demand in IT will be for programmers, blockchain processing, and security professionals, according to Janulaitis. Much of the hiring will be limited to filling positions that have been approved and are unfilled — not staff expansion.

Within the tech industry, the bulk of new hiring occurred in three sector categories, according to CompTIA:

• IT services and custom software development (+8,800)

• Other information services, including search engines (+6,800)

• Computer and electronic products manufacturing (+5,400)

In Janco’s mid-year 2022 IT Salary Survey, it found IT salaries for existing IT staff and middle managers increased by just under 3%, while new hires were paid 5% to 6% more than existing staff.  “In conversation with several CIOs, we observed that starting pay rates for new hires were in the 8%-10% range a few months back, but this is not the case currently,” Janulaitis said.

The disparity in pay between veteran IT workers and new hires is a point of contention and has likely led to some problems in worker motivation, according to Sinem Buber, lead economist with ZipRecruiter. When new employees are hired, they often come in with pay and benefits equal to or better than veteran employees. Even as companies have raised wages, it’s often across the board, ignoring seniority.

“So, the link between hard work and raises is broken,” Buber said.

Remote work hiring trends on the upswing

Remote work shows no signs of slowing down, according to CompTIA. Employer job postings for tech positions that specify remote work or work-from-home options continue to increase, with a year-to-date rate of 34% compared to 27% in 2021, and 22% in 2020.

Major tech hubs saw significant month-over-month increases in tech jobs postings, including Boston (+2,732), New York City (+1,459), San Francisco (+884) and San Jose (+864). The top industries for tech job postings were professional, scientific, and technical services (50,688); finance and insurance (35,500); and manufacturing (34,488), according to CompTIA.

Positions for software developers and engineers led the October job postings (85,796). “There is also strong demand for IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and network engineers,” CompTIA said.

September 2022: Janco analysis

IT job growth has continued each month for over a year, and in the last 12 months 202,800 jobs have been added, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor data, which was analyzed by IT consultancy Janco Associates.

At the same time, CIOs and CFOs have started to slow the rate at which they’re creating new IT jobs and hiring due to inflation and recession fears, according to Janco’s latest report.

“Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals will continue to be positive, but not as broad in scope as in the first nine months of 2022,” said M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates. “CIOs are still posturing to hire staff and expand technologies to address blockchain processing and security applications based on market conditions. However, most hiring will be limited to filling positions open due to attrition, not staff expansion.”

U.S. tech firms added workers for the 22nd consecutive month, and companies across the economy hired an estimated 84,000 new tech workers in September, according to the latest Tech Jobs Report from CompTIA.

Job postings for new hiring were down 12% from August, but still totaled just over 300,000. Positions in software development and engineering, tech support, tech project management, systems engineering, and network engineering were in highest demand, according to CompTIA.

About 30% of all postings were for positions in emerging technologies or in jobs that require emerging tech skills. Positions that offer remote work or work from home as an option surpassed 109,000.

Another new report by UK-based job search engine Hired showed that, unlike 2021, when companies were hiring faster than in years prior, the overall time to hire job seekers in 2022 slowed across the US, UK, and Canada. UK companies are now taking 68 days on average to fill open positions. US companies aren’t moving much faster, taking 60 days (up from 52 days in 2021). In Canada, it’s now 54 days. (Remote roles took 40 days to fill – that's slower than in 2021, but the shortest time to hire overall, Hired said.

“Why? It’s not clear yet," Hired said in its report. "Are jobseekers taking longer to evaluate opportunities? Or are employers moving candidates through the funnel more carefully? While this indicates an increase in the time to fill roles, it doesn’t equal an overall slowdown in tech hiring."

Data from Hired indicates employers offering remote roles have a hiring edge over those requiring hybrid or on-site jobs. Since June 2021, candidates showed a preference for remote-only roles.

In January, 18% of active jobseekers indicated they only wanted remote roles. By May, preference for "only remote" roles climbed to 31% of all active jobseekers on Hired's platform, and rose another percentage point to 32% in June. By June, 93% of candidates showed a preference for remote or hybrid jobs.

Throughout the year, IT salaries in the US and Canada (except for junior candidates with less than two years of experience) saw significant growth.

Mid-level US candidates with four to six years of experience saw the biggest jump from $146,000 to $154,000 between 2021 and 2022. Remote salaries for all candidates, except the most junior, also saw significant growth; on average they jumped by $7,000 to $8,000 from 2021 to 2022.

September 2022: CompTIA analysis

Tech companies added 25,500 workers last month, one of the strongest hiring months so far this year, according to new data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and industry analysts.

So far this year, employment in the tech industry has increased by 175,700 jobs, 46% ahead of 2021 — and 92% ahead of 2019, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce. (The total includes all employees —technical and non-technical — on the payrolls of tech companies.)

“Stability in tech hiring continues to be an over-arching theme this year,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “Despite all the economic noise and pockets of layoffs, aggregate tech hiring remains consistently positive.”

According to the latest BLS data, analyzed by IT consultancy Janco Associates, there are now 3.97 million jobs for IT Professionals in the US. For 24 months in a row, there has been an increase in the number of jobs added to the IT job market. Janco sees this trend continuing, according to its latest report released Friday.

The unemployment rate for tech occupations rose to 2.3% in August from 1.7% in July, according to CompTIA. There are likely two reasons for it jump: the overall US unemployment rate increased, as well, and some large tech firms announced layoffs, Herbert noted.

“The other component is we’ve seen a rebound in consumer confidence and worker confidence,” Herbert said. “So, it can also be attributed to tech workers feeling a renewed sense of confidence, and so they’ve quit their job and they’re looking for new opportunities. That was far more prominent earlier this year and last year with the 'Great Resignation.'”

The number of workers quitting their jobs remained above 4 million in August, according to BLS data. Since June 2021, more than 4 million people have quit every month, according to BLS data, giving rise to the trend known as the Great Resignation. The trend reflects a deep dissatisfaction by many workers with their employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic pushed workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions.

Overall employer job postings for tech positions eased in August to just under 320,000 from 372,000 in July, with 31% of jobs posted last month for positions in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT, or in roles that require emerging tech skills, such as data analytics and automation software.

“A lot of the technology is mature enough now that a lot of positions are implementing automation solutions, robotic process automation,” Herbert said. “Next-generation roles include cybersecurity, and broad categories of automation, so, marketing automation and HR automation.”

From January through August 2022, tech job postings where employers specify remote work or work from home as an option were up 56% over last year —and up 281% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to CompTIA.

“The one thing that jumped out at me, to no surprise, was the trend toward remote work that I think is now in a semi-permanent state,” Herbert said.

The increase in remote employment was highlighted by the leap in tech job postings in states such as Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, Herbert said.

Even as hiring was up, the number of job openings dropped, indicating the pace of new job vacancies could be slowing, according to Janco Associates. Its data is based on the latest BLS statistics.

There is some slowing in hiring as fears of a significant downturn or recession are on the horizon, Janco's report stated.

“CIOs and CFOs now are more cautious than they were in the first quarter.  CIOs do not have a clear understanding of how a downturn will impact their bottom line.  Most still are hiring but at a slower pace,"Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis wrote in the report. "Some companies have stopped hiring and started laying off employees."

"With all that, the IT job market remains tight with an average of 200,000 IT professionals jobs that are not filled due to a lack of qualified candidates," Janulaitis continued. "The number of unfilled IT jobs has peaked from over 260,000 in April to 210,000 in July. That should still be enough of a buffer to keep hiring of IT pros on a positive track.”

Janulaitis also said new IT hires are on average receiving salaries that are 5% to 6% above pay for existing positions -- and in some cases as much as 10% higher; The higher starting pay is needed to attract the best IT candidates. That salary disparity, however, is driving dissatisfaction and an increase in attrition rate among existing employees, according to Janulaitis.

"The challenge CIOs face will be how to keep the balance between the existing budget, providing salary increases to existing employees that address inflation and higher commuting costs, and having sufficient resources available to achieve the enterprise’s technology and bottom line objectives," Janulaitis said.

The BLS doesn't track tech industry jobs directly. Instead, the agency uses the "information sector" as a proxy for tech employment because there are tech jobs in most industries, and therefore technology is not an industry in and of itself.

The nation’s unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.7% in August, with the number of unemployed rising by 344,000 to 6 million. 

Overall, the US economy added 315,000 jobs in August, which was more than economists had predicted, but still far less than the 526,000 positions added in July – a record month for jobs.

Professional and business services added 68,000 jobs in August, according to the BLS. Within the industry, computer systems design and related services added 14,000 positions; management and technical consulting services grew by 13,000; and scientific research and development services increased by 6,000. Over the past 12 months, professional and business services has added 1.1 million jobs, according to the BLS.

“CIOs and CFOs now are more cautious than they were in the first quarter. CIOs do not have a clear understanding of how a downturn will impact their bottom line,” Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates said in a report last week. “Most still are hiring, but at a slower pace. Some companies have stopped hiring and started laying off employees.”

With all that, the IT job market remains tight, with an average of 200,000 IT professional jobs that are not filled due to a lack of qualified candidates, according to Janulaitis. If there is a major recession, many companies will choose not to fill those new open positions.

“That should be enough of a buffer to keep the hiring of IT pros on a positive track,” he said.

August 2022

Despite a number of sizeable layoffs at high-profile companies in recent months, the tech sector continued to lead all others in low unemployment rates in July, according to a new report from CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

Tech occupations across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 239,000 positions last month, according to an analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data by CompTIA.

Tech industry employment saw a net gain of 12,700 workers, the 20th consecutive month of growth. So far this year, the tech sector has gained 143,700 jobs, an increase of 55% year-over-year, according to CompTIA. The unemployment rate for tech jobs was just 1.7% in July (1.3% for women, 1.8% for men), roughly half the overall US unemployment rate of 3.5%.

Employer job postings for tech positions approached 484,000 in July, a slight decrease from the previous month but still at a near record level. Through the first seven months of 2022, US companies listed approximately 3.1 million jobs postings for tech positions, up 49% compared to 2021.

“The tech jobs market has repeatedly outperformed in the face of real and perceived economic weakness,” Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement. “The data confirms that for every layoff announcement there are other employers stepping in to take advantage of tech talent hiring opportunities.”

Meanwhile, since June 2021, more than 4 million people have quit their jobs every month, according to BLS data, part of a trend known as the Great Resignation. The trend  reflects a deep dissatisfaction by many workers with their employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic has enabled workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions.

Some of the top reasons workers quit this year are unhappiness with how their employer treated them during the pandemic (19%), low pay or lack of benefits (17%), and a lack of work-life balance (13%), according to a survey by employment listing website Joblist.

The BLS doesn't track tech industry jobs directly. Instead, the agency uses the "information sector" as a proxy for tech employment because there are tech jobs in most industries, and therefore technology is not an industry in of itself. 

Within the tech sector, three occupation categories recorded job growth in July – other information services, including search engines (+6,800); data processing, hosting and related services (+4,100); and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+3,300). Hiring in the IT services and custom software development category was flat, while telecom-related occupations declined (-1,400), according to CompTIA.

About one in five tech job postings in July were for positions requiring two years or less of experience. About half specified three to five years of experience, while 13% sought candidates with nine or more years of experience, CompTIA said.

Many employers, even those in tech industries, are ending college degree requirements for many job openings. Instead, organizations are focusing on the skills, experience, and personality traits of job candidates. The sea change opens up tech jobs to a more diverse pool of candidates.

Software developers and engineers are the most in-demand positions employers are looking to fill — accounting for nearly 148,000 job postings last month. There is also a strong job market for IT support specialists, IT project managers, systems engineers and architects, and network engineers and architects. Positions in emerging technologies or jobs requiring emerging tech skills accounted for one-third of all postings in July.

Faced with a dearth of workforce talent, many tech companies and others are hiring through non-traditional approaches that include coding bootcamps, low-code training, and a focus on population areas outside the norm.

July 2022

Over the past three months, IT job openings for entry-level positions have declined significantly, according to a new report.

Job openings for entry-level tech workers declined from 29,500 in April to 24,000 in May and to 18,400 in June, according to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates.

Janco’s report, which was compiled from US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and survey data, said the downward trend is the result of several factors — the most critical of which is an increasing belief among C-level executives that we are already or soon will be in a recession.

In creating its May forecast for future IT hiring, Janco found that almost all 217 CIOs it surveyed are planning on:

• Limiting the extension of existing contracts for contract workers and consultants beyond the 3rd quarter of the year.

• Managing the full-time employee headcount to budgeted levels through the end of this year.

• Not replacing departing employees who do not have critical IT skills and/or enterprise-specific operational knowledge.

“In our interviews, we have found that Wall Street has stopped hiring, and a number of job offers for recent IT college graduates have had offers that were extended pulled back,” Janco’s report stated. “The initial indicators from the monthly BLS data for June seem to be reinforcing those findings.”

Janco’s report noted that some organizations have already started the process of layoffs.

• Netflix, PayPal, Getir, Klarna, Bolt, and Carvana instituted layoffs in May.

• Coinbase will cut 1,100 jobs, about 18% of its global workforce.

• Microsoft is slowing down its hiring “to better align its resources.”

• Meta (Facebook) and Twitter have frozen hiring for some departments.

Gartner research shows that just 4% of US companies have started laying off employees, while 7% have frozen hiring and 15% have started to slow down hiring.

Hiring is still robust for experienced IT pros —particularly for certain job titles, including security-related positions and in-demand technology, such as blockchain and e-commerce positions — but entry-level candidates are finding it more difficult to find new jobs, according to Janco.

Overall, the number of open jobs in the US at the end of May was 11.3 million, a drop from 11.7 million in April, according to the BLS's May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report. Despite the drop in open requisitions, the U.S. added 390,000 jobs in May; The unemployment rate also held at 3.6%, and there were almost two job openings for each unemployed American. The number and rate of workers quitting their jobs remained almost unchanged at 4.3 million and 2.8%, respectively.

The impact of inflation and the potential of a significant downturn is not reflected in the preliminary budgets for 2023. Most CIOs and CFOs are trying to determine what they will do if that downturn occurs, Janco reported.

Janco also publishes a biannual salary survey in January and July. The just-published survey results showed that IT salaries were on the rise in the first six months of 2022. For the first time, median salaries for all IT pros in large enterprises exceeded $100,000.

Midsized companies were offering the greatest salary increases, which averaged north of 4% for IT middle managers and staff. IT executives saw an average 3.04% salary increase this year.

Large enterprises were more miserly, with staff receiving a 3.27% average increase and executives and middle managers earning a 3.47% and 1.20% average boost, respectively.

The unemployment rate for tech occupations fell to a near-record low in May, and employer job postings for tech positions passed 443,000, according to an analysis of the latest labor market data by CompTIA, a nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce.

“The already tight labor market just became even tighter as competition for tech talent reaches near-record levels,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “For any employer relying on the old hiring playbook, it’s time to rethink approaches to recruiting and retention.”

Employers throughout the US economy are stepping up their search for tech workers and tech companies continue to expand payrolls, according CompTIA. Specifically, tech firms added 75,200 workers through the first four months of 2022.

More than 190,000 new IT jobs will be created in 2022, according to IT employment consultancy Janco Associates. The IT job market now has more than 3.85 million positions in the US, with about 130,000 of those positions unfilled, Janco’s report stated.

Some of the top tech jobs in terms of hiring and pay include software developer/engineer, IT project manager, IT support specialist, systems engineer/architect, and network engineer/architect, according to CompTIA’s jobs report.

Tech workers employed in the cloud space saw some of the greatest salary increases over the past year, according to a new salary survey from O’Reilly Media, an online IT training provider. According to the report, cloud-focused workers are the most sought-after tech talent as a growing number of organizations of all sizes utilize cloud tools and services.

The survey revealed that cloud professionals are paid an average yearly salary of $182,000. Report findings also show the impact of the great reshuffle within the tech sector, with 20% reporting they’ve already changed employers over the last year, and 25% of respondents planning to find new employment with better compensation, raising a question of whether the great reshuffle will continue.

The average salary increase over the past year for cloud workers was 4.3%. The average salary for women, unfortunately, is 7% lower than the average salary for men, the survey also found.

The highest-paid job titles include directors ($235,000) and executives ($231,000), followed by architects, “leads,” and managers ($196,000, $190,000, and $188,000, respectively).

“During the pandemic, we witnessed millions of workers resign from companies in an effort to reconfigure their careers and take deliberate steps toward new job opportunities with higher wages and better alignment between their work and life goals,” said O’Reilly President Laura Baldwin. “With these workers in such demand, we anticipate the great tech exodus to continue unless employers step up with competitive pay, substantial benefits, remote work flexibility, and on-the-job learning and development.”

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Details of the settlement were not disclosed.

In the action brought by more than 30 U.S. states and representing 21 million consumers, the plaintiffs had claimed that consumers might have spent less on apps and had more options if it weren't for Google's alleged monopoly.

Parties to the settlement, including lawyers representing the attorney general for Utah which is leading the group of states, asked that a trial scheduled for Nov. 6 be canceled.

Google, which had denied wrongdoing, declined to comment on the proposed settlement. Lawyers for the consumer plaintiffs declined to comment on the proposed settlement, while a lawyer for plaintiffs that include the states and the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The settlement is subject to approval by the court.

Google is facing similar lawsuits which allege that it has generated enormous profit margins from its Play Store by engaging in illegal tactics to preserve monopolies in selling Android apps and in-app goods.

They argue that Google has unlawfully mandated that some apps use the company's payment tools and give Google as much as 30% of digital goods sales

Epic Games, which has brought such a claim, is not a party to the proposed Google Play settlement, founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"If Google is ending its payments monopoly without imposing a Google Tax on third party transactions, we'll settle and be Google's friend in their new era," he said, adding that if the settlement left the 'Google tax' in place, the company will "fight on".

Match Group (MTCH.O) has also brought a claim. A spokesperson for Match declined to comment.

The case is In re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 21-md-02981.

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IF YOU WERE planning on a shore vacation this year, you might have kept track of great white sharks. The apex predator made famous by Jaws (and, OK, by The Meg and Sharknado) has been spotted on East Coast beaches from South Carolina up past Cape Cod, leaving potential beachcombers worried by accounts of close encounters and attacks.

But many marine biologists are worried about a much smaller—in fact, microscopic—threat. They are tracking an unprecedented surge in ocean-going bacteria known as Vibrio, which recently killed three people and sickened a fourth in Connecticut and New York, at least two of them after swimming in the coastal waters of Long Island Sound.

For swimmers and fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, Vibrio is a known summer foe. It is one of the reasons for the old saying that you shouldn't eat oysters in months that don’t have an R in their name: Warmer water encourages bacterial growth, and oysters accumulate these organisms when they feed. The bacteria is also an infection hazard for anyone who gets a cut while cleaning up soaked debris after a hurricane. But Vibrio appearing in the waters of the upper East Coast is a new and unfamiliar problem, fueled by the rapid ocean warming of climate change.

Researchers worry Vibrio is going to become a persistent threat to whether people can safely enjoy the beach—and physicians who work in areas where it is already common wonder whether their northern colleagues will be alert to its potentially fatal risks. “We are used to certain diseases in our area, but they are something that clinicians in the Northeast, for example, may not be as familiar with,” says Cesar Arias, a professor and chief of infectious diseases at Houston Methodist Hospital. “All these changes in climate that we are seeing, including the tremendous heating of the oceans, is making the geography of infectious diseases change.”

Already, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there may be 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths caused by Vibrio species in the US each year; about 52,000 of them come from eating seafood. But because shellfish safety is tightly policed by federal agencies, it’s the other portion of Vibrio infections, caused by the species Vibrio vulnificus, that is raising so much concern right now. These infections happen when bacteria-laden seawater infiltrates a break in the skin. In an average year there are believed to be 28,000 cases, but that’s widely considered an undercount.

Those infections can be treated, if people get antibiotics quickly. But without rapid attention, they can cause necrotizing fasciitis—flesh-eating disease—that can only be arrested by amputation, and also can put people into septic shock in as few as two days. The bacteria can enter the body through very minor injuries: a cut from stepping on a shell, a pinch from a crab’s claws, water touching the incision created by a new piercing or tattoo. Up to one-fifth of those who contract vibriosis from wound infections die.

The risk is serious enough that, on Friday afternoon, the CDC sent out an alert to health departments and physicians, urging them to consider the possibility of V. vulnificus if they learn of wound infections in anyone who has been in the water in the Gulf of Mexico or on the East Coast. The alert emphasizes how fast these infections turn septic and asks doctors to send cultures to a lab—but it also urges them to start patients on antibiotics immediately, without waiting for lab results or consultation with a specialist.

Vibrio are on the move. In March, a research team based at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom used records of diagnoses combined with models of climate warming to define the situation in the US now and forecast what might come next. They found that, just for V. vulnificus wound infections, cases increased eightfold between 1988 and 2018. Every year, they were recorded about 30 miles (48 kilometers) further north.

Then, using several computer models based on predicted levels of greenhouse gas emissions combined with population movements, the group plotted the bacterium’s possible further shift. Under a conservative low-emissions scenario, they found that Vibrio—already present in the Chesapeake Bay—might extend its range to the middle of the New Jersey shore by 2060. In the outer bound of a high-emissions scenario, it might move as far north as the coast of southern Maine by 2100.

Elizabeth Archer, an environmental scientist who led the work as a doctoral student, says it was a mild shock to discover, via news of the recent Connecticut and New York cases, that V. vulnificus had already reached the edge of New England. “Our model had predicted that area to be in the main distribution of infections by mid-century,” she says. “So it was perhaps a bit surprising that it came so soon—but also not surprising, given the trends in ocean warming and air temperatures.”

In a few scientific circles, there has been concern for years that temperature anomalies are permitting Vibrio to surge out of its historic areas.

Bacterial surges have been documented on the coasts of the Netherlands and Poland, and isolated from tidal flats in northern California—all places where the water ought to be too cold for Vibrio to grow. And over the past decade, Vibrio has increased in Atlantic coastal waters off Florida and the Carolinas, not only contaminating seafood but also posing a hazard to people who fish or boat in marshes and in-shore waterways.

This year, the unprecedented warming of ocean water, which fueled the rapid intensification of Hurricane Idalia the night before it struck Florida’s Big Bend, is changing marine environments all the way up the Atlantic Coast. Both Long Island Sound—where two of the Connecticut victims were apparently infected—and waters off New England have reached record-high temperatures in the past few years.

“V. vulnificus is only active at a temperature that's above 13 degrees Celsius, and then it becomes more prevalent up until the temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius, which is 86 Fahrenheit,” says Karen Knee, who is an associate professor and water-quality expert at American University and an open-water swimmer accustomed to ocean conditions. “I was looking at the sea surface temperature maps, and everywhere south of Cape Cod is getting into territory that's above 20 degrees Celsius, which is when [Vibrio] really starts to become more infectious. And that's most of the swimming waters on the East Coast.”

There’s more going on than just temperature shifts. Geoffrey Scott, the chair of environmental sciences at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health who leads a research consortium on oceans and climate change, says changes in water quality are whomping up Vibrio’s ability to cause severe illness. Those changes are driven by people relocating to coasts, which increases nutrient flows into the ocean via wastewater.

Vibrio used to be a late-summer hazard, but is now turning up earlier—and also later— in the year. “We've gone from them being mainly an issue from late July through early October, to being present April through November,” says Scott, who formerly supervised several coastal laboratories in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And in some cases, they have been seen overwintering in North Carolina, around the Outer Banks.”

To the problems of V. vulnificus being more virulent, in more places, for longer, you can add that more people may be exposed: first, because hot weather naturally sends more people to the beach, and second, because some of those people may not realize how vulnerable they are.

“[Vulnificus] predominantly seems to impact people who have liver disease much harder than those who do not,” says Scott Roberts, an infectious-disease physician and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine. “And in general, being in an immunocompromised state. That could be from age, could be from chemotherapy, or if there's some sort of underlying disease.”

Many people won’t know they are in danger. Every state with a shellfish industry participates in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program run by the Food and Drug Administration, which dictates standards for every aspect of shellfish production, including screening for contamination by Vibrio. That’s out of self-interest: Any hint of the organism’s presence can shut down a state’s shellfish economy. (In fact, since the recent deaths, the home page of the Connecticut Department of Agriculture has been topped by a highlighted banner declaring “Connecticut shellfish have never been associated with Vibrio vulnificus infections.”)

But there’s no national program that can warn swimmers or surfers of Vibrio’s presence in the ocean; no testing regime like ones that look for coastal E. coli; no system of flags like the ones that announce strong surf and rip tides. These hazards are local knowledge, shared among people who have lived alongside them.

“People down here may have a buddy who got cut on a shell or while fishing, and their finger’s a little red and swollen, and somebody will be like, ‘Don't sleep on that. I had a buddy who waited till the next morning and he lost his hand,’” says Brett Froelich, a microbiologist and assistant professor at George Mason University in Virginia. “Other people in other locations don't know that. They will absolutely think, ‘Well, I hope it gets better in the morning,’ and in the morning, their hand is black.”

This poses a problem: How to make the public in newly endemic areas conscious of their new risks. No one—especially not researchers at publicly funded universities—wants to be perceived as hurting coastal tourism. “We don’t want to scare people away from beaches,” Froelich says. “You don't need to avoid [them]. You just need to be aware.”

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