While unemployment has surged in the past two weeks in response to the mass layoffs triggered by COVID-19, the IT Index ticked down only modestly in March. This reflects the fact that the BLS survey upon which the index is based was collected earlier in the month as well as operational impediments amid the crisis. In March, IT employment ticked down .03% to 5,348,500 jobs, according to a report by TechServe Alliance, an IT & Engineering Staffing and Solutions industry of The United States. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment grew by a mere 0.10% since March 2019 adding 5,600 IT workers.

Engineering employment increased by 0.01 percent sequentially to 2,676,100. On a year-over-year basis, growth in engineering employment increased by 1.46% since March 2019 or 38,400 engineering workers.

"Despite the modest decline in the March IT Index, I fully anticipate we will see far more significant declines reflected in the coming months," commented Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. "While IT is likely to fare better than most other sectors, the sweeping nature of the economic decline will be felt broadly," added Roberts.

With this current crisis of COVID-19, all the leading sectors are in bad shape.  Companies, governments, and industry leaders are doing their bit to manage the crisis, though the situation becoming worse once the dust will settle down economy will come on track. Senior analysts across the globe are suggesting that it may take some time but the damage has been done. IT, tourism, transportation, aviation are some of the worst affected sectors.