Google parent company Alphabet added nearly 9,000 new employees in the past year

Google parent company Alphabet has added nearly 9,000 employees to its payroll over the past year.

The company finished Q1 with a headcount of 64,115 employees, according to its earnings report. That compares to 55,419 employees in the year-ago period. And it's up a couple thousand from the 61,814 that Alphabet had just a few months ago, at the end of 2015.

Alphabet is one of the internet industry's most dominant companies, generating $20.3 billion in the first quarter. But investors are worried about its spending.

The increasing headcount is especially interesting since Alphabet has slowed down its once feverish acquisitions of other companies in recent months.

Facebook, by contrast, finished 2015 with 12,700 employees.

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