The wave of IT layoffs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, according to new data from management consulting firm Janco Associates. The pandemic’s economic fallout resulted in about 117,000 job losses in U.S. IT positions in April and early May 2020. But Janco’s May survey of U.S. IT organizations shows that further layoffs are largely not expected. But neither is much IT job growth. IT organizations don’t expect to begin hiring again until late 2020, assuming that the gradual economic reopening now in progress continues and demand for goods and services resumes, providing the money for new and replacement hires.
Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis expects that the net number of new U.S. IT jobs in 2020 will be about 35,000, versus the 94,500 it had expected before the epidemic struck. In 2019, the U.S. IT job market grew by 90,200.
It’s not yet at the level of “Brother, can you spare a dime?” for IT workers, as it is for many workers in retail, entertainment, and hospitality. But as it becomes apparent the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will be take several years, IT pros are seeing layoffs in the U.S. and diminished prospects for future work, both as staff and as contractors.
In April 2020, IT pros saw 102,300 layoffs in the U.S., according to management consulting firm Janco Associates. And Janco has now more than halved the expected IT job growth in 2020 that it predicted just a month ago – to 40,000 versus the earlier prediction of 95,400 IT jobs.
Janco’s current projection for U.S. IT jobs this year is now 3.6 million, down from 2019’s 3.7 million U.S. IT jobs. ♦
