Employment in the IT industry in the US continued to fall last month, new research has indicated.

According to a study conducted by TechServe Alliance, the industry lost nine per cent of its jobs (34,800) in May.

IT employment was 3,849,100 last month, meaning that over the course of the year the industry has experienced a 3.51 per cent drop in employment levels.

In November 2008, there were more than four million jobs in the sector, TechServe Alliance noted.

Mark Roberts, chief executive of the organization, said that while the results were disappointing they were not particularly shocking given the state of the economy.

He commented: "Given that improvement in employment typically lags other economic indicators, the continued decline in IT employment was expected.

"Despite the generally gloomy IT jobs report, survey data and anecdotal reports from our member companies appear to suggest that there is some stabilization in the IT employment picture."

The monthly IT Employment Index is based on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.