The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is quickly impacting enterprise workforce plans, according to a new finance executive survey conducted by Gartner. This despite the pledge by some in the software and cloud space to forgo such moves in light of the growing economic uncertainty.

The Gartner enterprise survey of 161 finance executives conducted earlier this month found that the number of companies that have planned or are planning to furlough staff, cut salaries, and cut workforce has doubled since a similar survey was conducted at the end of March.

Specifically, the numbers showed that 11% of respondents cut staff in March compared with 25% that have or are planning to cut staff in May and June. Those that have furloughed staff increased from 14% at the end of March to 34% that plan on furloughing staff in May and June.

Financially, nearly three-times as many finance executives plan to stop matching 401k contributions over the next two months compared to the end of March. And three-and-a-half-times as many are looking to abate or reduce salaries over the same time frame.

As for taking on any new workers, 65% said they will freeze all hiring over the next two months, which was just a slight uptick from the 58% that said they would at the end of March. But a decision to delay or freeze new hirings nearly doubled to 57% in May and June.

“CFOs are unsure what reopening will look like and have little visibility into when revenue will start to normalize,” explained Alexander Bant, practice VP for research at Gartner’s Finance Practice, in a statement. “This is driving CFOs to look for the next round of structural cost cuts to preserve cash for the coming months. Companies are conducting robust analysis about which of their business lines and products sets they will rescale, reinvest, return, reduce, and retire. As they do this, they are determining which sets of staff they need to succeed in the short- and long-term.”

Bant also noted that companies are being deliberate about cutting jobs in areas “they do not believe will return to normalized revenues anytime soon. They are protecting roles in parts of the organization that will be necessary to meet a return of demand across the coming two quarters.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics last week reported that more than 20 million jobs were lost in April, and that the nation's unemployment rate surged to 14.7%.

A number of firms in the cloud and IT space have made moves toward managing their workforce conundrum brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nutanix earlier this month said that it planned to implement rolling two-week-long furloughs of 25% of its California workforce in an attempt to bolster its financial position in battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Google and Microsoft have also announced plans to either slow down or freeze their hiring plans in the near term.

Cisco, PayPal, Palo Alto Networks, and Marvell Technologies are among a handful of companies that have pledged to not cut their workforce due to the pandemic.