Amazon is hiring more sales staff than ever to bulk-up its ads business

Amazon hopes of building an online advertising business to rival that of Facebook and Google is at the core of its recruitment drive at present. The company’s finance chief told investors that its 42% year-on-year increase in headcount was driven primarily by it acquiring software engineering talent and building teams to promote its emerging media services offering.
Additionally, Amazon is also pre-empting the closure of its proposed $13bn purchase of Whole Foods by experimenting