Coronavirus - market and recruitment situation, March 2020
Summary of current information on the impact of Coronavirus on the business and recruitment situation. Information collected from several sources, including our business partners and Element‘s Job Monit module, which monitors over 50 Polish job boards.
Going up by coronavirus
- The food industry needs employees. There were a significant number of new vacancies, especially around mid-March. According to reports, the increase in the value of the food shopping basket was 57% (Nielsen) in this period. The graph below is presenting job ads published by a few leading food chains.
- The demand for employees in the distribution industry (e.g. warehouse workers) is growing due to the growth in the e-commerce industry.
- There is also a growing demand for programmers in e-commerce projects, telemedicine, tools for remote work.
- New needs for employees in the toy industry have emerged.
Going down by coronavirus
- Transport, hotel, tourism, catering, automotive industry (production stopped due to lack of raw materials, health concerns of employees, reduced demand for services and goods).
- Redundancies in the clothing industry. There is a risk of bankruptcy even for companies operating recognized brands.
- The automotive industry has stopped. Both car manufacturers, component suppliers, warehouses.
- The IT industry, although it was supposed to be doing well, is also beginning to feel the effects of the current situation. Programmers are starting to ask more often for jobs and projects; some IT companies are reducing employment.
- Recruiters start losing their jobs.
- Earnings reductions and redundancies in banks.
- Banks and leasing companies suspend payments for 3 to 6 months, especially for the catering and tourism industry. In one of the leasing cases my friend was called by a leasing company and informed about the reduction of the installment from PLN 2000 to PLN 500 for 6 months (car leasing), even though my friend didn’t ask for it.
Job ads report for Żabka, Dino, Biedronka and Rossmann
Further reports from the ATS Element system
This week (probably Thursday) we will present a larger report on recruitment announcements, presenting key industries and the most popular positions.
Finally, a useful link for everyone who wants to have access to constantly updated pandemic data, statistics from around the world in one place: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
Related posts:
- Who benefits from the coronavirus?
- Coronavirus – job ads report from weeks 11 and 12
- How we gather data for recruitment reports
Please also:
Maciej Michalewski
CEO @ Element. Recruitment Automation Software.
Recent posts:
Does an ATS Reject CVs? The Truth Looks Different
Short answer: no. No ATS I’ve ever worked with, Element included, has a function that reads a CV and automatically rejects a candidate. What an
Fields and tags in Element: a system that fits a small firm and an international one
A new way to use fields and tags in Element. Unlimited fields, tags on user accounts too, and one switch that turns a tag group into a boundary in your candidate database.
The Rise and Fall of AI Agent Civilizations. The Real Story of a Conspiracy Inside OpenAI
Three AI agent civilizations rose inside OpenAI in three months, learned to talk to each other, conspired and collapsed. I retell Dwarkesh Patel’s account and what is worth preparing for.
Element is building a fully automatic company. What clients get from it
AI agents run our operational processes, while the decisions and the accountability stay with a human. What that means for Element clients.
Job offers in Poland, July 2026: the market grows for a second month, but IT stands still
Poland posted 275,623 new job ads in July 2026, up 2% year over year. Healthcare grew fastest of all sectors while IT did not move at all.
The autonomous company: how Replit does it with AI agents, and how to do it yourself
Replit built an autonomous company: a fleet of AI agents where people choose the goals and automations handle the steps. I break down the pattern and how to run it yourself.
