BLS reports low unemployment in telecom sector
Unemployment in the telecommunications sector continued its waning trend reaching a low 1.7% in March 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, down from 1.9% in February, 3.1% in January and 6.1% in December.
Similarly, employment ranks in the telecom industry have continued on an upward trend. According to the BLS, there were 863,400 telecommunications-related employees in March.The March tally of telecom workers is up from 862,000 in February, 861,200 in January and 861,500 in December.
For purposes of the BLS tracking, the telecommunications subsector includes people who work in telephony, VoIP, cable and satellite television distribution; Internet access; and telecom reselling. The BLS describes the telecom subsector as “primarily engaged in operating, and/or providing access to facilities for the transmission of voice, data, text, sound and video.”
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Averaged across all telecom employees, the BLS figured wages at $31 per hour with an average of 38.6 hours worked each week, equating to a weekly income of $1,196.
The BLS tracks monthly employment and associated figures.
One area that has seen strong demand is work with small cell technologies. The small cell market, depending on how it is defined, covers a wide range of technologies: small cellular sites, distributed antenna systems, and Wi-Fi. That range means a broad set of skills is increasingly being sought, even as companies are trying to push down the cost of deployment, including installation and testing, as well as the time to market.
RCR Wireless News recently put together a list of four skill areas for small cell jobs that are currently listed by companies such as Crown Castle, Goodman Networks and others in the small cell deployment space. Those included radio frequency knowledge, project management skills, familiarity with cabling systems, and network testing skills and certification.
