Glassdoor: COVID-19 hits 1 in 5 IT job openings in a single month

In the space of one month, the number of available IT jobs dropped by 20% across the U.S., according to the recruiting site Glassdoor, about on par with the avarage loss across all job oppenings.

The data came from Glassdoor’s economic research unit and was part of a broader analysis of all U.S. industries. All told, the number of job openings between March 9 and April 6 dropped to 4.8 million, a 20.5% decline.

Sixty percent of employers have reduced job openings since March 9, with almost one in four pulling all of their job postings.

“For perspective, the U.S. is on track to lose as many job openings on a percentage basis in the first four weeks of the crisis as we did in the first nine months of the Great Recession,” wrote Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor in the report.

As relates to tech, Glassdoor said job openings in “Information technology” dropped from 173,952 on March 9 to 152,018 on April 6 (-19.2%), “Computer software and hardware” job postings dropped from 175,983 to 128,064 (-19.7) during the same timeframe and “Internet and technology” job openings declined from 91,239 on March 9 to 71,924 on April 6 (-7.6%).

The tech industry can’t complain. Job openings in the travel and tourism industry plummeted 73% while arts and entertainment job openings fell 46% in the same time period.

“While major economic downturns do affect the entire country, rarely do we ever see a disruption affect every region of the country so rapidly,” Zhao wrote.

One relatively bright spot in the data is the increasing availability of remote jobs, which are taking “a bigger slice of a smaller pie,” as Glassdoor put it. While remote jobs declined 10.8% in the last month, they are still up 8.7% year over year. Additionally, the share of jobs listed as remote is increasing sharply, up 27.9% from last year.

“This is potentially an early sign that those who have wondered if the current crisis will bring about a sea change in remote work may be correct,” Zhao wrote.

Only one category grew: Government. The number of jobs grew from 124,151 in March to 129,247 in April, an 11.7% gain.

Despite the plunge across the board, Glassdoor noted there are still five million job openings on the company’s platform.