Originally Posted by Unregistered

(Ignoring the trolls who flooded the forum)

Hiring manager here in a engineering MNC.

I have 1 headcount frozen since March 2020, initiated the interview process after receiving approval all the way from BU board management - we had a company wide hiring freeze since early this year.

Interviewed about 10 - 15 candidates, 30-40% were retrenched since early this year, some even have their entire department / BU closed in Singapore. This is when I feel the impact of COVID to the employment market.

The story didn’t end here, few weeks after I have completed my interview process and ready to make offer via HR, I was told that my company is having layoff in July and this position will now be frozen again, I have to tell my candidates this difficult decision and apologise to them.

We had 6 persons removed from our office, and eventually I have this position filled with internal transfer from another BU, have to make compromise on the qualification, fortunately we didn’t have the headcount removed.

I definitely cannot speak for other company / industry, but being in the service department of an engineering company, our forecast for the next 6-12 months is below average. Even if we are able to get vaccinated by end of 2020 (this needs a lot of luck!), the economy will not be out of the wood for another year, and it will never be the same anymore.

Remote working will be a new norm (we are in discussion among management team to downsize the office space), traveling will be a luxury for the next few years, e-commerce and cloud computing is the next big trend, etc.