The swift and massive shock of the coronavirus pandemic and shutdown measures to contain it have plunged the global economy into a severe contraction. According to World Bank forecasts, the global economy will shrink by 5.2% this year. That decline represents the deepest recession since the Second World War, the World Bank says in its 2020 Global Economic Prospects. Among the worst affected are advanced economies, which will shrink by 7% on average in 2020 as domestic demand and supply, trade, and finance are all severely disrupted. Economic downturns affect each industry differently and the tech sector has a track record of doing quite well. The deep recession of the early 1980s gave birth to the personal computer era, for example, turning Apple and Microsoft into the companies they have become. While the milder recession of the early 1990s lead to governments essentially handing control of the internet over to the private sector, which then […]