Amazon ($AMZN) publicly announced that it was on track to hiring 400 people that will work at its future HQ2 in Arlington. The new hires will work in a temp space as the company's first massive building in Arlington is built to house the East Coast headquarters.
Meanwhile behind the scenes — or actually, in front of our eyes on the internet — Amazon was ramping up hiring in the state ever since the first rumors started to swell that the D.C. Metro area would be the site of a future second headquarters.
In 3 months, Amazon saw a job opening increase of 24.93%. In that same period, Amazon Job Openings in Virginia specifically saw a 33.03% increase.
While these hiring trends were in line with Amazon's overall growth, the change in hiring patterns over time indicated that the company was planning something big in the state.
On July 4, 2018, Amazon was looking to put at least 670 people in Virginia through its careers page. By February of this year, the number of individual openings in the state surpassed quadruple digits, and stood at a 9-month high in mid-April.
How does that compare to Amazon's overall job opening growth? While the trend lines look similar, the rate of increased job openings in Virginia outpaced that of Amazon as a whole.
In 3 months, Amazon saw a job opening increase of 24.93%. In that same period, Amazon Job Openings in Virginia specifically saw a 33.03% increase.
Still, this amount of growth isn't too dramatic to see a tangible shift in which states see the most job openings for Amazon. Since the beginning of 2019, Virginia was always the third-ranked state in terms of job openings, trailing behind Washington, Amazon's HQ state, and California.
In fact, one could say that the Bay Area is already the second Amazon headquarters, as it houses several important units like the A2Z Development Center and Twitch. (Someone actually did! Melia Russell at the San Francisco Chronicle wrote this, and you should definitely check it out).
Regardless, Amazon is hiring for hundreds of people in Virginia, mostly in its widely successful Amazon Web Services unit.
However, given the state's proximity to the nation's capital, Amazon seems to also be on the hiring spree for those who can herald the company's impact on public policy. In looking at titles that contain the words "government," "public policy," and "public sector," there was a steady number of positions available in Virginia that also increased slightly over time.
