Facebook and Alphabet, the two tech heavy hitters, have been curbing hiring, which Citi analyst Mark May said could signal a peak in overall job growth.
CNBC, citing comments Citi’s May made, reported that the slowdown in hiring is coming on the heels of a healthy rate of growth in jobs throughout 2018. “We’re seeing early signs of maybe some slowdown in hiring as a forward indicator based on the number of job postings” at Facebook and Alphabet, the internet analyst told CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.”
Since peaking in June, job openings at Facebook, particularly in human resources, were down, Citi found. Meanwhile, job postings at Alphabet, which had been stable since May, were down 5 percent in October and 8 percent in November. May noted that the jobs report this past Friday (Dec. 7) showed 155,000 non-farm payroll jobs were added in November, which was lower than the 198,000 jobs economists were looking for and below the 237,000 added in October.
The report was well received on Wall Street as investors bet it could be enough to stop the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates. The major indexes did end lower on concerns about overall economic growth and the trade war between U.S. and China. “Maybe we will see a little bit of a [slowing] of hiring going forward within the internet group,” May said.
May noted that at the same time Facebook and Alphabet are scaling back on new hires, Amazon was looking to beef up its Amazon Web Services staff by 10 percent during the same time period. The number of job openings it has is low when compared with the total headcount at the company, noted CNBC. “Amazon continues to be far and away the largest hirer in the group,” May told CNBC.
