Amazon job openings rose in April while they fell at Alphabet, Facebook and Netflix, says Citi

Amazon displayed over 36,000 job openings at the end of April, up 19% year over year, while openings from scompanies contracted, according to a review by Citi analysts that was published on Monday.

The statistics suggest that other companies were taking steps to hold back on unnecessary spending as coronavirus impacted world economies, and Amazon, which has sold groceries to consumers and cloud services to businesses through the pandemic, still wanted to grow its workforce. The pandemic has created a record rise in jobless claims in the U.S., with more than 36 million new claims since the crisis started in March.

According to Citi, Alphabet, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, GrubHub, Netflix and Twitter all posted year-over-year declines in job postings in April. The biggest declines among the companies that analysts led by Jason Bazinet reviewed came at Cars.com and Trivago.

“Excluding Amazon, total job postings fell 51% in April 2020 versus last year,” the analysts wrote, noting that postings are a proxy for costs.

The analysts began looking at web traffic information, a proxy for revenue, alongside job postings after the coronavirus outbreak began.

“So far, e-commerce, social media and streaming services have experienced a boost in traffic,” they wrote.

Amazon’s annualized growth rate slowed down in April from 35% in March. Amazon had 840,400 employees at the end of the first quarter, up 33% year over year, according to the company’s most recent earnings statement.

In April, CNBC reported that Alphabet subsidiary Google took steps to freeze hiring and lower its marketing expenditures.

Originally published on CNBC.com