Tech companies have pulled back sharply on hiring, adding to the cascade of negative economic shocks caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
It’s been roughly one month since the country’s first stay-at-home order came down in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the weeks since then, shutdowns to control the pandemic’s spread have unleashed havoc on industries ranging from retail to travel and tourism. The pace and scale of the economic damage have been striking. An additional 4.4 million Americans filed for jobless claims last week, bringing the total to 26 million over the past five weeks. And some economists are predicting the U.S. unemployment rate could soon eclipse 30% — up from a 50-year low of 3.5% in February.
On the other side of the ledger, hiring trends are painting an equally distressing picture. And, despite the shift to remote work and the surge in demand for certain online services, tech is not immune to the pullback.
Jobs openings nationwide across the industry dropped more than 20% between mid-March and mid-April, according to analysts at Glassdoor.
“A lot of attention has focused on the impact of service workers,” Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, said. “But the fact of the matter is that there isn’t any industry that is immune to the effects of the outbreak. And the tech industry has to figure out how to adapt like every other industry.”
The drawdowns have been especially acute in the Bay Area and in the sub-sector of internet and technology — including companies like Pinterest and Yelp. These platforms have reported significant bumps in user engagement, but they have been offset by a sharp slowdown in advertising spending. Even more traditional roles seem to be on precarious footing. Postings for computer software, hardware, and IT jobs have all dropped double digits between mid-March and mid-April.