Last week, Lyft ($PRIVATE:LYFT) rolled out its new shared-scooter service in Denver, Colorado, signaling a new chapter for the ridesharing startup. It comes with a 27% increase in job openings since the mid-summer.
According to data tracked from its job listing website, Lyft currently has 97 more job openings than it did during its lowest point of hiring on July 3. This translates to approximately a 27% increase in job openings over the past two months.
What exactly caused this gradual, yet significant, increase? Much of it is due to Lyft's aforementioned entry into the bike and scooter sharing industry. On September 10, there are 40 job openings for technology and operation positions within the new division.
| Category | Openings (July 3) | Openings (Sept. 10) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 63 | 84 | +21 |
| Bikes & Scooters - Ops | 0 | 19 | +19 |
| Global Operations | 106 | 122 | +16 |
| Bikes & Scooters - Tech | 0 | 11 | +11 |
| Recruiting | 12 | 19 | +7 |
| Finance | 11 | 16 | +5 |
| Marketing | 9 | 14 | +5 |
| Product | 13 | 17 | +4 |
| Airports & Venues | 1 | 5 | +4 |
| People | 9 | 12 | +3 |
| Autonomous Hardware (Level 5) | 5 | 8 | +3 |
| University | 5 | 8 | +3 |
Outside of the new categories, there was significant growth within several sectors, including two of Lyft's primary divisions of Global Operations and Engineering, compared to where hiring was back on July 3. Those saw increases of 15% and 33% percent respectively from July 3 to present day. Other major growth areas were in Recruiting (7 new jobs), Finance (5 new jobs), and Marketing (also 5 new jobs).
As of September 10, its headquarters in San Francisco, California accounts for nearly half of where these new hires would be based out of. Coming in second for most openings in a specific city is right down the 101 in Palo Alto, where most open jobs are for autonomous car development.
| City | State | Entity Name (Count) |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | CA | 211 |
| Palo Alto | CA | 41 |
| New York | NY | 35 |
| Nashville | TN | 30 |
| Seattle | WA | 19 |
| Boston | MA | 8 |
| Austin | TX | 7 |
| Washington | DC | 7 |
| Denver | CO | 7 |
| Miami | FL | 6 |
| Los Angeles | CA | 6 |
| Chicago | IL | 6 |
Hiring at Uber also growing, yet lags behind Lyft
Lyft's overall growth also surpassed that of its main competitor Uber ($PRIVATE:UBER), over the same period.
Of course, Uber's workforce towers over Lyft's staff, and its number of job openings quadruples that of its pink mustachioed rival. However, in terms of overall growth since July, Lyft has Uber beat; Uber only posted a job listing increase of 11% during that period, which is still pretty solid given their size.
However, with Uber also looking to enter the shared bike and scooter space, Lyft looks to have a boost off the starting line to rival primary scooter and bike sharing services such as Lime ($PRIVATE:LIMEBIKE), and Bird Ride ($PRIVATE:BIRD).
