The job market and workplace are changing rapidly as the COVID-19 crisis forces more companies to operate remotely and layoff employees. Hiring has slowed and the unemployment rate continues to rise.

We wanted to get an overhead view of the landscape, looking specifically toward employee sentiment, hiring trends, remote work obstacles, and the college recruiting outlook.

Below you’ll find data we’ve compiled to help illustrate the unprecedented challenges both businesses and workers are facing right now.

As always, it’s our mission to empower job seekers. With that at the forefront of our minds, our team has been hard at work building a new free tracking tool that currently features over 5,000 companies hiring right now.

Layoffs

In the week ending April 11, there were 5,245,000 new unemployment claims. In total, there have been 22 million new claims in the last 4 weeks. These numbers have shattered early forecasts.

Survey studies show that over one third of US workers have anxieties about their companies collapsing, while 22 percent believe they will ultimately lose their jobs. These numbers are slightly optimistic next to the Federal Reserve’s Q2 unemployment rate prediction of 32.1 percent. 

As employees begin to recognize the real threat of losing their jobs, many are on the lookout for signs of an impending layoff and preparing their resumes and networks for a job search. A wise move as many economists believes that, although these unemployment numbers are unprecedented (even higher than those during the Great Depression), they could bounce back quickly once an effective coronavirus treatment or vaccine is developed.

Of course layoffs are more likely in certain industries and sectors. Service industries have taken the hardest hits and were first to experience the effects of the crisis. Healthcare (outside of emergency coronavirus specialties), childcare, and education have also experienced disproportionate layoffs. Now, the effects are reaching other industries, even those that are able to operate remotely or are otherwise not directly affected by stay-at-home orders.

One survey study by Fishbowl showed that 65 percent of advertising professionals believed coronavirus would result in layoffs at their company, while only 32 percent of law professionals worried about layoffs.

Hiring

Many companies have implemented hiring freezes. According to Indeed data, total March 2020 job postings were down 24 percent versus the same time last year. Hospitality has seen the greatest drop in hiring, down nearly 60 percent versus this time last year.

Some businesses such as essential retailers and courier services are ramping up hiring to accommodate increased demand during the pandemic. Here are the most in-demand jobs, according to LinkedIn.

A new hiring tracking tool from Jobscan

The Jobscan team has compiled data to create a real-time master list of over 5000 companies that are hiring right now. Check it out here.

Working from Home

Although technology has enabled many businesses to continue their operations remotely, not all companies have the infrastructure to effectively support a remote team. Undefined remote policies combined with the challenge of creating productive quarantine-time workspaces have resulted in drops in productivity and the feeling, especially among parents, that employers are not doing enough to support workers during this time.

According to a Mercer study, almost half of US workers believed their productivity had gone down, and one-third of workers said that they had not received enough support from employers while working from home.

That drop in productivity could have a lot to do with the challenges of working alongside children who are home due to schools being closed across the country. According to the Mercer data, a little over half of companies have granted parents autonomy over their schedules, but only 10 percent have reduced working hours and 38 percent have made no adjustments for parents.

working with kids statistics

Source: Mercer

College Recruiting and Internships

College students set to graduate this year are facing an unprecedented time. Jobs will be scarce and many companies will not be able to recruit on campus. According to NACE data at the beginning of March, only 20 percent of companies planned to recruit on campus as normal this Spring. Since then, universities have closed for the school year. 

Another concern for students are internships, which many use to gain entrance into their desired career worlds. NACE data suggests that many companies are planning to continue with their 2020 internships, whether they have to delay start dates or move the internships online. 

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