Social distancing means more social media.
America is accepting the likelihood of a long-term societal shutdown (or, at least, a partial one), and it's driving more people online as they look to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic's impact on the US.
As Americans try to get caught up on the news and get settled in the new shut-in realities of social distancing, hiring across social media is up virtually across the board.
At Twitter, job postings are up nearly 40% globally in 2020. Although the company's pace of hiring in prior years usually brings with it an uptick to begin each year, Twitter ($TWTR) hiring to date is growing at a faster pace - and to include a greater number of jobs - than prior years.
At Twitter, job posting categories including "Trust and Safety" and "Legal & Public Policy" have seen recent increases to multi-year highs. As social media companies increasingly combat disinformation no longer just focused on elections, but deceiving people about the Coronavirus pandemic, it's increasingly important for companies controlling the flow of information to Americans' smartphones to re-evaluate their role in helping stem a global crisis before it worsens. Based on hiring data, Twitter's taking it seriously - and they're not the only one.
In 2020, Facebook ($FB) hiring is also up more than 18.5% (not shown).
Similarly, at Snap ($SNAP), hiring is continuing unabated despite a market downturn that has thrashed the social sharing company's stock - it's down 43.6% in 2020.
At Snap, job posting categories including "Legal" and "Engineering" have seen recent upticks in hiring - perhaps also in a need to ensure disinformation isn't made available to users - during 2020.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.