Even compared to figures for February, the month before, catering and hospitality job vacancies fell 29.6%.
The numbers come from independent job board CV-Library, which also recorded a big drop in the number of applications being made for jobs – 64.3% year on year and 18.6% from February to March.
Lee Biggins, chief executive of CV-Library, said: “It’s not surprising that the outbreak of Covid-19 has prevented businesses from moving forward with their hiring plans.
“With global supply chains disrupted and many organisations forced to close their doors in order to respect social distancing rules, companies have had to change the way they operate and adapt to this new normal.
“Sadly, this has involved placing existing employees on furlough and even making redundancies.
“The national unemployment rate is set to soar in April and there’s no doubt that this will be a really tricky time for business owners across the UK.
“However, we will come out the other side of the pandemic and organisations need to be ready. Remember, we may be under these social distancing restrictions for some time, so be prepared to hire remotely and consider how that’s going to work.
“For example, you’ll probably need to adapt your recruitment process to rely on techniques such as video interviews.”