North America extended its dominance for machine learning hiring among retail industry companies in the three months ending March.

The number of roles in North America made up 77.1% of total machine learning jobs – up from 75% in the same quarter last year.

That was followed by Asia-Pacific, which saw a -0.7 year-on-year percentage point change in machine learning roles.

The figures are compiled by GlobalData, who track the number of new job postings from key companies in various sectors over time. Using textual analysis, these job advertisements are then classified thematically.

GlobalData's thematic approach to sector activity seeks to group key company information by topic to see which companies are best placed to weather the disruptions coming to their industries.

These key themes, which include machine learning, are chosen to cover "any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night".

By tracking them across job advertisements it allows us to see which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which are dragging their heels - and importantly where the market is expanding and contracting.

Which countries are seeing the most growth for machine learning job ads in the retail industry?

The fastest growing country was the United States, which saw 70.8% of all machine learning job adverts in the three months ending March 2021, increasing to 73.5% in the three months ending March this year.

That was followed by Germany (up 0.9 percentage points), Spain (0.5), and China (0.1).

The top country for machine learning roles in the retail industry is the United States which saw 73.5% of all roles advertised in the three months ending March.

Which cities are the biggest hubs for machine learning workers in the retail industry?

Some 19.4% of all retail industry machine learning roles were advertised in Seattle (United States) in the three months ending March.

That was followed by Sunnyvale (United States) with 5.8%, Bengaluru (India) with 4.5%, and Bellevue (United States) with 4.3%.