The health crisis caused by the Coronavirus has far from spared the tech industry. Toward the end of March 2020, CodinGame surveyed over 2,700 developers from 150 countries. In this report, CodinGame provides exclusive data on the impact of the current situation on the economic stability of computer programming jobs around the world.

1. MARCH 2020 SURVEY
AROUND THE WORLD

2. The health crisis caused by the Coronavirus has far from
spared the tech industry. Toward the end of March 2020,
CodinGame surveyed over 2,700 developers from 150
countries. In this report, CodinGame provides exclusive
data on the impact of the current situation on the economic
stability of computer programming jobs around the world.
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3. EMPLOYEES IMPACT BY COUNTRY
FREELANCERS
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4. 1. EMPLOYEE
DEVELOPERS
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5. We first divided the sample of 2,700 respondents
into an employee/freelancer distribution.
Employees account for 88.37% of the total
sample, compared with 11.63% who are
independent freelancers.
DISTINCTION EMPLOYEES/
FREELANCE DEVELOPERS
5
Are you currently working for a company or as a
freelancer developer?

6. For employees, who accounted for 88.87% of
respondents, the Coronavirus health crisis has had
a moderate impact, estimated at 4 on a scale of
10.
90% of the reasons cited by developers surveyed
relate to the need to switch to 100% remote
work. Other reasons relate, to a lesser extent, to
changes in priorities, budget cuts related to a
decrease in activity, schedule reorganizations,
wage reductions, technical unemployment or
part-time work measures.
IMPACT OF THE HEALTH CRISIS
ON JOB SECURITY
6
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you estimate the
current sanitary crisis has impacted your job?

7. The vast majority of developers surveyed (86.56%)
declare that they are still employed full-time.
Part-time work follows with 5.44% of respondents,
and then temporary layoffs, which have
affected 3.93% of respondents. Temporary
business closures have affected 1.26% of
respondents.
Finally, 2.52% of respondents say they have
been permanently laid off, and 0.30% report
that the company they worked for has gone
bankrupt.
FULL-TIME, PART-TIME,
TEMPORARY LAYOFFS,
PERMANENT LAYOFFS
7
Are you still employed full-time?

8. 98.59% of developers surveyed say they can
work remotely from their homes.
Only 1.41% of the sample was lacking this
opportunity.
REMOTE WORKING METHODS
8
Does your company allow you to work from home?

9. IMPACT OF THE HEALTH CRISIS
ON CURRENT PROJECTS
Developers interviewed estimate that the crisis
is having an impact on 3 out of 10 ongoing
projects.
This very moderate impact includes project
cancellations, schedule delays, lower
productivity linked to an increase in the volume
of telework meetings, the inability to conduct
business trips, and cancellation of trade shows
or public events.
Overall, however, all respondents point to a
relative ease in adapting their field to remote
work.
9
How have the projects you are/were working on been
affected by the crisis?

10. 65.33% of the developers interviewed say the
health crisis has not had an impact on their
wages.
On the other hand, 26.44% of the respondents
feel that it will be more difficult this year to
negotiate a raise.
Finally, 8.23% of respondents say they have been
affected by a salary cut.
THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON
DEVELOPER SALARIES
10
Has the Coronavirus crisis impacted your salary as a
developer?

11. 61.88% of developers surveyed
believe that it will be more difficult
in the future to change jobs.
38.12% expect the situation to have no
impact on their ability to change jobs.
DEVELOPERS AND TURNOVER:
WILL IT BE AS EASY TO CHANGE
JOBS?
11
In the next few months, do you think it will be as easy as it was
previously to change jobs in the tech industry?

12. 66% of the developers surveyed consider that
their jobs are threatened by the Covid-19 crisis.
This is an important figure that marks a turning
point in the stability bubble that computer
development has evolved in over the past years.
IS DEVELOPER EMPLOYMENT
UNDER THREAT?
12
Do you feel like your job is threatened by the Covid-19
crisis?

13. 2. FREELANCE
DEVELOPERS
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14. Six out of 10 freelancers surveyed (for the record,
11.63% of our total sample) estimate that the
health crisis has had an impact on their jobs,
compared to 4 out of 10 for employed developers.
FREELANCERS: MORE IMPACTED
THAN EMPLOYEES IN THEIR
BUSINESS
14
How much do you estimate the current sanitary crisis has
impacted your job as a freelancer?

15. Only 36.63% of freelance developers surveyed
consider that the health crisis has not had an
impact on their ability to land new contracts.
On the other hand, 63.37% of freelancers point
out that they are experiencing economic
difficulties.
In all, 29.63% feel it is more difficult to find new
missions, and 33.74% declare that "their
freelancer activity has plummeted due to the
greater difficulties of finding new missions."
FREELANCERS: SEVERE
DIFFICULTIES FINDING NEW
MISSIONS
15
How hard is it for you to find new contracts in the current
situation?

16. 3. IMPACT
BY COUNTRY
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17. The 2,700 developers who responded to our
survey reside in 105 countries around the world.
France accounts for 19.85% of the sample,
followed by the United States (13.52%), Germany
(5.10%), the United Kingdom (4.90%), and Russia
(4.48%).
2700 DEVELOPERS
IN 105 COUNTRIES
Geography of respondents
(Percentage of developers per country)
France
United States
Germany
United Kingdom
Russia
Poland
India
Spain
Canada
Ukraine
Italy
Netherlands
Romania
Sweden
Brasil
Hungary
Belgium
Portugal
South Africa
Australia
Czech republic
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18. France is the country that has been
most affected by temporary
unemployment measures (9% of
respondents), followed by Spain (7.69%),
India (7.02%), and Italy (5.13%).
Among the countries that have made the
least use of this measure are the United
Kingdom (1.96%), Germany (1.75%), and
Poland (1.30%).
TECHNICAL UNEMPLOYMENT
DEPENDING ON THE COUNTRY
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Technical unemployment: the most impacted countries
(Percentage of developers temporary laid off per country)
France
Spain
India
Italy
Russia
Ukraine
Belgium
United States
Canada
Portugal
United Kingdom
Germany
Poland

19. As a reminder (see page 7), 2.52% of respondents
have been laid off.
Romania is the country most affected by layoffs
(7.69% of respondents), followed by Canada
(5.26%), and France, in third place (4.11% of
respondents).
LAYOFFS: THE MOST AFFECTED
COUNTRIES
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Layoffs: the most impacted countries
(Percentage of developers dismissed per country)
Romania
Canada
France
Poland
India
Spain
United States
Germany
Netherlands
Ukraine
Russia
United Kingdom

20. While layoffs affect only 2.52% of the developers
surveyed (see page 7), wage cuts affect 8.23% of
respondents (see page 10).
The countries that have used this method the most
are Spain (17.53%), Ukraine (17.42%), Belgium
(15.38%) and the United Kingdom (15.38%).
France, which has been able to favor temporary
unemployment, has used this method for only
3.96% of respondents.
WAGE CUTS HAVE BEEN FAIRLY
WIDELY USED
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Countries where wage cuts have been observed
Spain
Ukraine
Belgium
United Kingdom
South Africa
Germany
Poland
Brasil
India
Portugal
Romania
United States
Italy
Netherlands
France
Russia
Sweden
Hungary

21. Overall, developers who have been used to being
able to claim frequent and effortless job changes
are now facing more difficulty in doing so.
Countries in which respondents feel they will
have the most difficulty changing jobs are Russia
(75.31%), the United Kingdom (75.26%),
Hungary (72.73%), and India (71.74%).
Concern about the possibility of being able to
change jobs is limited to 46.87% of respondents
residing in France.
TURNOVER: COUNTRIES WHERE
IT WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT TO
CHANGE JOBS
21
Countries where developers feel it will now be more
difficult to change jobs
(Percentage of developers feeling it will more difficult to change jobs in their country)
Russia
United Kingdom
Hungary
India
Ukraine
Canada
United States
Romania
Sweden
Germany
Netherlands
Brasil
Poland
Spain
Belgium
Portugal
South Africa
France
Italy
Czech republic

22. Overall, 79.79% of the developers interviewed
believe that the Coronavirus crisis will affect
the tech industry less than other industries.
Among the reasons cited, respondents point to
the their trade’s adaptability to remote work
and go digital.
However, the collateral impact of weaker
economic performance in more affected
industries, such as the banking sector, is still
anticipated.
A MORE LIMITED IMPACT OF THE
CRISIS ON THE TECH INDUSTRY
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As one respondent noted:
"As information technology professionals, not only are we in a privileged position as one of the easiest fields to shift to
telecommuting, but we also have a responsibility because these jobs have become essential to the viability of a society
that now relies almost exclusively on remote communications and digital resources to operate."
Do you feel like the Coronavirus crisis will affect the tech
industry less than it affects other industries?

23. Overall, the global health crisis has not entirely spared the jobs of developers. While freelance
developers are taking the brunt of the crisis, employed developers are nevertheless suffering from
temporary unemployment measures, wage cuts and layoffs which, for the first time in several years, have
raised fears for their jobs.
However, developers are aware that they are in a unique position to provide innovative solutions to
support international efforts during the pandemic.
Health, education, communications: they are proud to note that the present crisis has shed light on the
essential role of IT to continue to run whole sectors of the economy and ensure the very survival of our
societies. Telecommuting, the cloud (with the outstanding work of DevOps engineers, for example), and
e-commerce all place the developer profession at the heart of the digital transformation.
Many developers find that while the crisis will be fatal for fewer companies in the tech sector, it will still lead
to a profound revolution in ways of working. A large number of respondents pointed out that the
situation has proven that the developer field is perfectly suited to remote work, convincing companies which
heretofore were wary of this work method.
We’ll leave you with a final word from one of our respondents: "It's time to change the way we work. Tech
industry or not: the future is in remote work."
Conclusion
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24. ABOUT US
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Founded in 2014 by Frédéric Desmoulins, Nicolas Antoniazzi and Aude Barral,
CodinGame is a French start-up specializing in tech recruitment.
On the CodinGame.com platform, more than 2 million code fans worldwide have honed
their programming skills for free, through games and programming challenges.
Companies looking to hire and retain talented developers (Bank of America, Nintendo,
ebay, Adobe, Warner Bros., etc.) have turned to CodinGame to optimize their
recruitment process, uncover hidden gems, and strengthen their employer brand.
Everybody wins: developers land their dream jobs and businesses build strong,
sustainable technical teams.

26. CONTACT THE CODINGAME TEAM
contact@codingame.com
+33 9 54 39 85 49
@CodinGame
linkedin.com/company/codingame/
facebook.com/CodinGame/
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