Impact of coronavirus on recruitment - selected positions, Q1 2020. Element ATS report.
Yet another report based on data gathered from Element ATS. Last week we published a report on the impact of coronavirus on the number of job offers in particular industries. This time we publish a report on specific job positions.
We analyzed several thousand job ads from the whole first quarter of this year. The results include a dozen or so of the most frequently appearing job positions.
(click to enlarge)
Naturally, the biggest changes in the demand for employee recruitment appeared in March. According to the data from our ATS, the number of job offers has decreased sharply in almost all analyzed positions. The biggest drops concern such workplaces as:
- Manual worker: -61,68%
- Kitchen help: -59,18%
- Cook: -55,07%
Our ATS has also recorded increases:
- Machine operator: 12,76%
- Software developer: 19.97%
software developer - ATS Element system report
I looked closely at the number of job offers for the software developer position. By “software developer” position, I mean all types of positions that concern software production in all of today’s key technologies (java, php, python, C++, C#, ruby, .net, javascript, etc.). I wonder what the reason for the almost 20% increase in the number of job offers for these positions is?
As I mentioned in previous reports, the IT industry is exceptionally resistant to coronavirus. Home office in this industry is nothing unusual for many companies, and for some, it is a normal way of operating. An additional element may be a slowdown in sales through traditional channels, which has caused an increase in e-commerce (source). However, not only e-commerce could have an impact on it. Customer service in banks, insurance companies, and other institutions also had to be moved to the Internet.
I looked into more data from our ATS system to see what was the number of job offers for the software developer position in each week of March.
(click to enlarge)
The result indicates that in March alone, the number of job offers fell. Additionally, the most significant difference was between the last two weeks of March. Is this enough to draw any conclusions? I’m not sure. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the ICT industry reacted to the coronavirus with a delay. Perhaps it is also due to the fact that the recruitment needs for e-commerce and e-contractor projects were saturated at the end of the month. Perhaps, however, the reasons are completely different.
If there are people among the readers who can correctly interpret the large increase in recruitment announcements for the broadly defined position of a software developer, in March compared to January and February, I will be obliged to explain.
At the end of the statistics on employment reduction in March in the United States. I think that they illustrate well how unevenly the coronavirus treats individual areas of the economy, CNBC source:
Source of data - ATS Element system
Technologies monitoring recruitment announcements published on the Polish labour market, implemented in Element ATS. More information about our sources at the end of this post.
Related posts:
- Who recruited the recruiters in March, 2020
- Coronavirus – news from labor market and recruitment needs report
- How we gather data for recruitment reports
hashtags# coronavirus jobs offers report recruitment ATS Element
Maciej Michalewski
CEO @ Element. Recruitment Automation Software.
Recent posts:

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.

How to reject a candidate without ghosting: Glen Cathey’s playbook
Ghosting applicants isn’t a volume problem, it’s a priority problem. I walk through Glen Cathey’s rejection playbook: 6 rules, 7 templates and ATS setup.

Poland’s job market turns positive: 259,000 postings, all ten cities growing
Poland posted 259,000 job ads in June 2026, the first positive year-over-year reading in more than a year. The Grant Thornton and Element report reads it as a cautious but real turnaround.

What’s new in Element: a month of concrete improvements for recruiters
A roundup of what’s new in Element this month: saved filters, GDPR and consent tracking, candidate SMS, a new public API, and stronger data security.

Career in the age of AI agents: what really counts, per Phil Chen
Phil Chen (Helm AI, Scale, OpenAI, DeepMind) argues that in the age of AI agents, finding problems, the last mile and reputation matter more than solving tasks. A summary plus my HR take.

AI isn’t taking jobs. Companies that invest in it hire more
A Ramp study of 21,599 US firms finds that companies investing seriously in AI grow headcount 10.2% in two years, including entry-level roles. The data pushes back on AI job-loss panic.