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The technology industry has “significantly contributed” to a freefall of job advertisements in Australia due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to figures from job site Seek, the number of IT jobs fell by 30 per cent in March 2020 and by more than 60 per cent in the first two weeks of April, year-on-year.
The technology jobs market was already suffering a decline, with Seek reporting a 12 per cent decline in IT ads in 2019.
Nevertheless, jobs are still available for developers and programmers, software engineering, business and systems analysts and project management, the website claimed.
Meanwhile, the overall number of job ads fell by 65 per cent in March compared to the same time last year, and 68 per cent this month.
From a geographical standpoint, Victoria and New South Wales saw the biggest declines in April, reaching 75 per cent and 70.0 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, 82 per cent of Australia-based employees said their job has been directly impacted by COVID-19 with 30 per cent having their hours cut or losing their role, according to a Seek survey of 1,104 people.
However, the website claimed application rate for roles in call centre and customer service has increased by more than six times over the last three weeks.
Last week, Datacom pledged to hire more than 2,000 Australian residents who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The roles will be based at a number purpose-built contact centres designed to manage federal government agencies’ response to the COVID-19 spread.
