Office workers appear to be less willing to change jobs in the first quarter of 2020 amid uncertainties brought by the coronavirus epidemic, a survey from online recruiter zhaopin.com finds.

At the start of spring, the job market saw less talent mobility as the overall white-collar job-hopping index fell to 3.66, from 3.74 a year before.

Faced with new economic uncertainties, white-collar workers have become more reluctant to job-hop and more of them chose to put their plans on hold.

From January to March, office workers were more willing to find new jobs, but fewer of them took action. Data from zhaopin.com’s survey showed that around 95 percent of office workers were willing to change their jobs, and around 68 percent of them had received offers.

Affected by the epidemic, the number of white-collar workers who are going through resignation procedures, and those who have updated their resumes, were both lower than last year, the study noted.

More than a quarter of surveyed office workers were taking a “wait-and-see” approach, and the number was up by 7 percentage points compared with a year earlier.

Meanwhile, only 1.16 percent said they would stick to their current jobs, a rate that has fallen over the past two years.

For Shanghai, around one third of white-collar respondents said they were confident about their career prospects in 2020, with the confidence index slipping to 3.13 from 3.64 last year, below the national level of 3.16, according to zhaopin.com.

As for the cause of lack of confidence, 62 percent of Shanghai office workers said they were concerned over the uncertain economic environment, and more than half were pessimistic about the industry or company they worked in.