Google's YouTube to Boost Staff by 30% in 2011

YouTube, the popular video site owned by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), said on Thursday it is adding 200 jobs, boosting its staff by more than 30% in its biggest hiring year.

In a blog posting, the company also said more than 35 hours of video are uploaded to its site every minute, with videos viewed over 2 billion times a day.

YouTube, with about 650 employees, said most of the new jobs will be at its San Bruno, California headquarters, but there are also overseas openings in cities including Milan, St.Petersburg, Tokyo and Zurich. The jobs range from advertising sales to engineering.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion but the search giant has never separated out financial data to show whether the video site is contributing meaningfully to Google's profits.

YouTube's push for more staffers comes on the same day as one-time Internet giant AOL Inc  planned to cut nearly 20% of its workforce following its takeover of Huffington Post.