Survey: More than Half the Tech Workforce Say Pandemic Hurting Career Progression

More than half of employees of America’s largest tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Google, believe the COVID-19 pandemic is hindering their career plans.

According to a September survey, 53% of more than 1,600 employees polled at large American tech firms believe their career prospects have stalled due to coronavirus, driven largely by a dearth of networking opportunities.

Slightly fewer than three in four professionals (74%) state they have not been able to network internally since March, when the majority of nonessential private and public sector positions went remote. Further, the survey indicates 75% of employees haven’t been able to network outside their companies, either.

“In the new workplace reality, individual professionals almost have to take a detective-like approach, investigating and vetting opportunities,” said workforce strategy consultant Dorie Clark. “That may not be hard in smaller companies, but in large global enterprises, information becomes key.”

The survey was conducted from Sept. Sept. 14-17 by Blind, a professional network that regularly polls its millions of verified users on various employment-related issues.

The top five companies employees were able to network internally within were Salesforce (43%), Booking.com (35%), Grab (31%), LinkedIn (27%) and Amazon (26%). Uber fared the worst, with only 8% of its employees able to network internally. Externally, Indeed.com topped the rankings with 38% of its employees able to work remotely, followed by VMware (35%), Intel and Booking.com (both 32%) and Salesforce (31%). Adobe employees were least likely to network externally, with 10% saying they had.