Yahoo is suddenly in a hiring frenzy despite layoffs and the sale of its company

July 18 was a big day at Yahoo: it announced its second quarter earnings and took the final bids for the auction of its core business, which eventually sold to Verizon.

But it appears that day marked the start of a new trend at Yahoo as well: a massive hiring spree.

According to Yahoo's US careers page, the company posted 76 new job openings on July 18. Two days later, on July 20, it posted a whopping 151 new job openings.

And this week, after announcing its sale to Verizon on Monday, Yahoo's posted 23, 20, and 15 new job openings over each of the past three days.

That's a big increase from the previous two months, during which time Yahoo's careers page has not had a single day in which it posted a double-digit number of new jobs in the US.

It's unclear what's driving this change, but it's a strange development given the fact that Yahoo's going through a 15% workforce reduction plan and a massive reorganization simultaneously as a result of its sale to Verizon.

Most of the jobs are located in Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters, with a heavy focus on engineering. A lot of the jobs require experience in mobile and ad technology, the two areas Yahoo's been investing in more heavily lately.

The sudden uptick in the number of new jobs could be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

It could be a sign of high turnover and Yahoo filling up those empty positions. It could also be a result of Yahoo replacing less productive jobs with newly created positions focused on its higher growth areas. Maybe it's just a sign of Yahoo pushing forward with some of its previous plans. Or it could simply be a backlog of job openings being pushed out after a pre-determined date.

Still, it's curious that this happened right after closing the auction for its core business, and at a time when investors are calling for cost cuts across the company. And one has to wonder how much success Yahoo will have filling the jobs at a time of such uncertainty about the company's future.

Yahoo's representative wasn't immediately available for comment.