Google-owned YouTube said it plans to increase its staff by nearly a third in what will be the online video-sharing star’s biggest hiring year.

“2010 was a bang-up year,” Jeff Ferguson of YouTube human resources team said in a blog post. “And in 2011, we plan to grow the number of people working at YouTube by more than 30 per cent!”

Since being founded in February of 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, YouTube has become a global stage for sharing video.

An average of 35 hours worth of video are uploaded to YouTube each minute and two billion videos are watched daily at the website, according to Mr Ferguson.

“It’s been amazing to watch an idea become a platform that turned into a stage for hundreds of millions of people to express themselves,” he said.

“We now have aspiring filmmakers and musicians building their careers on YouTube, activists opening our eyes to global issues and individuals telling their stories in ways that only video can capture.”

YouTube also announced the launch of the first “YouTube Creator Institute” in conjunction with the University of California School of Cinematic Arts and Columbia College of Chicago.

Institute programmes will combine online and on-campus components aimed at teaching aspiring filmmakers how to thrive with digital age tools.