Despite Google’s parent company Alphabet posting an impressive 18,000 total jobs in H1 2022, inflation and a potential recession have triggered a downtrend in the company’s new job postings since the highs of March 2022, says GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company found that Alphabet’s job postings declined by 21%, from 3,599 in March 2022 to 2,859 in June 2022.

According to GlobalData’s Company Filings Analytics database, mentions of ‘Recession’ in companies’ annual filings increased by nine times in Q2 2022 over Q1 2022. Further, discussion of ‘inflation’ and related keywords* was particularly high in the technology sector, which saw the highest frequency in Q2 2022 compared with other industries tracked**.

Sherla Sriprada, Business Fundamentals Analyst at GlobalData comments: “Mounting costs, increasing inflation, and fears of a recession have technology companies worried, and they are likely to look at hiring slowdowns or laying off their workforce. For instance, in July 2022, Alphabet and Apple announced slowdowns in hiring, while Microsoft and Oracle are reportedly considering job cuts.”

Alphabet’s job closures, defined as when the jobs are closed/removed from the career page of the employer, have been on a downtrend since April 2022, with the slowdown in both closures and postings indicating a dip in hiring activity.

Alphabet still seems to be driving certain initiatives around ‘People Operations’ and ‘YouTube’.

Sriprada continues: “GlobalData’s Job Analytics database identified that Alphabet posted a role for a newly-created People Operations (POps) Velocity team. The role, ‘Workforce Planning Infrastructure Lead’, looks at supporting organizational workforce planning inclusive of the systems and solution architecture, as Alphabet is turning to a data-driven approach to reinvent HR. Meanwhile, in February 2022, the company posted a role for a ‘Strategic Partner Manager of YouTube Shopping Partnerships’, as the company looks to drive shopping on YouTube. A second role, ‘Senior Director, Creator Marketing, YouTube’, posted in July 2022, will help to drive product usage for YouTube’s multi-format platform across long-form/short-form video, live, and podcasting formats.

*Keywords including ‘inflation’, ‘inflationary pressure’, ‘labor inflation’, ‘inflationary cost’, ‘inflation rate’ et al.

**The Company Filings Analytics database tracks companies across 20 sectors.