Another hiring website, Indeed, estimates that on April 10, positions in IT and engineering were down about 30% from a year earlier, while in marketing the drop was 50%.
With millions of newly unemployed Americans in the market for whatever jobs are out there, workers are likely to see their bargaining power sharply reduced – and it wasn’t great to start with.
Even during the record-long U.S. expansion that just ended, economists were debating why wages weren’t rising faster despite a historically low unemployment rate.
“When we get on the other side of the pandemic, it’s going to be a buyers’ market again for labor,” said Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute. “People will just be scrambling to get a job, any job.”
That’s pretty much how Simon in North Carolina feels, a couple of weeks into life as an unemployed father.
“I’m expecting to have a lower salary in whatever position I have next,” he said. “I would just be thankful if I can just get a marketing job in general. I mean, lower pay, higher pay, less benefits. Anything.”
--With assistance from Michael Sasso and Alex Tanzi.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.