Over the past year, Uber has added as many or more employees as established heavyweights Apple, Tesla and Facebook did throughout 2016, according to an analysis of hiring trends at large tech firms. The ride-sharing company’s doubling of its workforce to about 12,000 employees means it added more than four times as many people as Snap and more than nine times as many as Airbnb, though it still trails giants Alphabet and Amazon. It isn’t clear whether a string of high-profile crises at Uber has affected the pace of hiring.
Uber has continued its streak of doubling its workforce year to year. It already is nearly as big as Facebook and Tesla were two years ago, years after those two companies had gone public. (Companies like Facebook and Tesla also have contract workers that don’t show up in the numbers.) Uber added about as many employees as Apple and as Salesforce, which acquired companies Demandware and Quip last year.