Global economic instability will affect tech sector: Sundar Pichai

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Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said that the current global macroeconomic conditions will severely affect the tech sector.

The world is going through acute supply chain issues and raw material shortage owing to the Russia-Ukraine war, China lockdowns, high inflation and interest rate hikes, resulting in Big Tech stocks nosediving.

In an interview with Nikkei Asia late on Tuesday, Pichai said that economic instability will affect the tech sector and the Internet giant "looks to long term for hiring and investment".

With fears of a recession growing, macroeconomic factors "will affect the tech sector," Pichai was quoted as saying.

Alphabet's stocks are down by 22 per cent this year, as tech companies are battered by the worldwide slump in the markets.

"Google definitely sees uncertainty ahead, like everyone else," Pichai was quoted as saying earlier this month.

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, is also slowing down on hiring this year.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told employees that the company plans to hire 500 people this year, versus 2,000 it hired over the past 12 months, after warning investors that its revenue wouldn't grow as fast as expected.

Like many companies, Snap continues to face rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain shortages and labour disruptions, platform policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and more.

"As a result, while our revenue continues to grow year-over-year, it is growing more slowly than we expected at this time," said the Snap CEO.

Amid the global woes came the report that Google, Meta, and Amazon may have to spin off masses of their advertising businesses under the US Congress's latest bill targeting Big Tech.

The bipartisan bill brought Meta down around 9 per cent and Alphabet, the parent of Google, fell in equal measure. Amazon and Apple stocks slid 7 and 5 per cent, respectively.

--IANS

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