As the impact of Covid-19 continues to force tech companies to hold their spending, new research from talent.io has revealed that 38% of UK and European firms are freezing most or all of their tech recruitment.

In London alone, there has been a 57% drop in the number of companies creating new permanent tech job listings.

“Our insights into the state of the recruitment market reveals the harsh reality of the current pandemic,” commented Jonathan Azoulay, co-founder, talent.io.

“What’s concerning is that London, which is one of the most important tech hubs in the world, is one of the hardest hit regions in Europe.”

talent.io’s market research is based on both internal and external analysis of Covid-19’s impact on the tech recruitment industry across Europe. It has monitored hiring activity of over 5,000 tech startups, unicorns and corporate businesses on its selective recruitment platform and surveyed over 800 of them.

The research has also tracked thousands of job board listings across LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Indeed, as well as observed recruitment activity from an extensive number of Google keywords and paid marketing campaigns.

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Meanwhile, a separate report from Beauhurst, which analyses investment activity of the UK’s fastest-growing companies, says 22% of jobs in high-growth tech companies were under “severe to critical risk” — equating to 615,000 people in the UK who could lose their jobs.

Azoulay continued: “The tech industry must not standstill which means companies need to invest in the right people now so they can thrive in the future. This is why we are switching to a 100% free model to help companies for the duration of the crisis. We also hope this will, in turn, help tech workers who have sadly lost their jobs find new positions.

“Our vision has always been to offer the simplest solution for matching tech talent with great tech projects. From day one, our approach has been to find the tech industry’s pain points – which is most often scarce cash resources — and use our platform to remove them.”

The 100% free hiring model announced by talent.io will see hiring fees drop from an average of £8,000 per hire to £0 for at least three months. This will give tech companies a much-needed breather and allow them to invest in what matters most in the long run — their teams.