Talk:List of largest employers

Untitled

I felt this was an important list to add - a company's impact is felt way beyond its revenues. In the global marketplace, a company like #7 Agricultural Bank of China was #377 in revenues, but employed nearly half a million people. In parts of the world where employees and customers alike have less money than in the US, we wouldn't be comparing apples to apples.
That being said, none of this is original research. Obviously this imformation has been available. It just hasn't been shown in Wikipedia this way before. I do have the entire list of 500 in Excel, which I hate to throw away. It's a useful tool for anyone creating 2005 or 2007 lists. Is there any way to save that? I keyed in the employment numbers from the Fortune website and I'd hate to do that again.
Also, considering that #486 on the Fortune list had 332,000 employees, I would almost guarantee that there are many other companies with over 200,000. I wasn't ready to spend the time researching through the Fortune Global 2000 for them, however. I hope anyone familiar with those companies can add them with proper documentation. Should I mark the 61 companies I added with an "F" or something to mark where they came from? I don't want to clutter the screen with external hyperlinks for each line.
SSherris 00:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this content is useful, I sorted the list in revenue/employee and profit/employee. It seems like a freaky examination. But the results could be interesting. For example, Toyota motors is first and MacDonalds is last concerning revenue per employee. CityGroup is first concerning profit per employee. The other figures might not all be very relevant or interesting, I just thought I would copy this here. --Rougieux (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's an important list. But the money cnn webpage already provides such lists. Mehfoos (talk) 09:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone's trying to deliberately tamper with the info

I checked the BBC source and found that the list is accurate save for the Indian organisations. Someone conveniently added a million or so to the workforce to make it go up the rankings here. I also saw that the Fortune 500 listing is inaccurate. If someone could go through the source to rectify it, it would be great. Mehfoos (talk) 09:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

This is still the case! Nov 11 201286.136.165.111 (talk) 18:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

List of companies sorted by revenue per employee

'	Company name	Employees	Revenue million $	Profit million $	Fortune Global 500 rank	Revenue $/employee	Profit $/employee
34.	Toyota Motor	285977	$185 805	$1 212	8	$649 720	$4 238
22.	General Motors	335000	$192 604	$(10 567)	5	$574 937	$-31 543
27.	General Electric	316000	$157 153	$16 353	11	$497 320	$51 750
16.	DaimlerChrysler	382724	$186 106	$3 536	7	$486 267	$9 239
29.	Citigroup	303000	$131 045	$24 589	14	$432 492	$81 152
58.	Metro	204076	$72 814	$66	55	$356 798	$323
48.	Verizon Communications	217000	$75 112	$7 397	50	$346 138	$34 088
20.	Volkswagen	344902	$118 377	$1 392	17	$343 219	$4 036
54.	Peugeot	208500	$69 915	$1 279	60	$335 324	$6 134
35.	HSBC Holdings	284000	$93 494	$15 873	26	$329 204	$55 891
42.	Deutsche Telekom	243695	$74 062	$6 939	54	$303 913	$28 474
59.	France Télécom	203008	$60 933	$7 094	71	$300 151	$34 944
39.	Nestlé	250000	$74 659	$6 416	53	$298 636	$25 664
33.	Home Depot	289800	$81 511	$5 838	43	$281 266	$20 145
25.	Intl. Business Machines	329373	$91 134	$7 934	29	$276 689	$24 088
37.	Tesco	273024	$71 128	$2 821	59	$260 519	$10 332
56.	Unilever	206000	$49 581	$468	106	$240 684	$2 272
55.	Telefónica	207641	$48 833	$5 524	108	$235 180	$26 604
23.	Matsushita Electric Industrial	334402	$78 558	$1 364	47	$234 921	$4 079
18.	Hitachi	355879	$83 596	$33	38	$234 900	$93
9.	Siemens	461000	$100 099	$2 855	22	$217 134	$6 193
11.	Carrefour	440479	$94 455	$1 784	25	$214 437	$4 050
40.	Robert Bosch	248853	$52 208	$2 919	99	$209 795	$11 730
32.	Kroger	290000	$60 553	$958	73	$208 803	$3 303
47.	United Technologies	222200	$42 725	$3 069	126	$192 282	$13 812
60.	Safeway	201000	$38 416	$561	146	$191 124	$2 791
1.	Wal-Mart Stores	1800000	$315 654	$11 231	2	$175 363	$6 239
43.	Albertson's	234000	$40 397	$446	139	$172 637	$1 906
49.	Deutsche Bahn	216389	$31 132	$721	188	$143 871	$3 332
19.	Sears Holdings	355000	$49 124	$858	107	$138 377	$2 417
50.	FedEx	215838	$29 363	$1 449	197	$136 042	$6 713
5.	Sinopec	730800	$98 785	$2 668	23	$135 174	$3 651
15.	Gazprom	396571	$50 824	$14 865	102	$128 159	$37 484
57.	SNCF	205839	$26 086	$1 579	229	$126 730	$7 671
46.	Mittal Steel	224286	$28 132	$3 365	208	$125 429	$15 003
61.	Hutchison Whampoa	200000	$23 475	$1 844	259	$117 375	$9 220
38.	Veolia Environnement	271153	$31 368	$774	185	$115 684	$2 854
14.	United Parcel Service	407000	$42 581	$387	129	$104 622	$951
3.	State Grid	844031	$86 984	$1 074	32	$103 058	$1 272
44.	Federated Dept. Stores	232000	$23 347	$1 406	262	$100 634	$6 060
4.	U.S. Postal Service	803000	$69 907	$1 445	61	$87 057	$1 800
17.	Industrial Commercial Bank of China	361623	$29 167	$4 114	199	$80 656	$11 376
28.	La Poste	303405	$24 018	$692	252	$79 162	$2 281
53.	Royal Mail Holdings	208866	$16 154	$705	417	$77 341	$3 375
2.	China National Petroleum	1090232	$83 557	$1 295	39	$76 641	$1 188
30.	China Construction Bank	300288	$22 771	$5 749	277	$75 831	$19 145
45.	China Railway Construction	227000	$14 139	$53	485	$62 286	$233
8.	UES of Russia	461200	$27 768	$1 868	213	$60 208	$4 050
31.	Ford Motor	300000	$17 721	$2 024	9	$59 070	$6 747
12.	Compass Group	410074	$23 469	$2	260	$57 231	$5
13.	China Telecommunications	407982	$22 736	$2 376	279	$55 728	$5 824
36.	China Railway Engineering	280581	$15 294	$83	441	$54 508	$296
26.	Sodexho Alliance	324446	$14 819	$202	459	$45 675	$623
24.	China State Construction	332585	$14 122	$166	486	$42 461	$499
7.	Agricultural Bank of China	478895	$17 166	$127	377	$35 845	$265
41.	Tyco International	247900	$4 178	$3 032	136	$16 854	$12 231
21.	Target	338000	$5 262	$2 408	97	$15 568	$7 124
51.	Hon Hai Precision Industry	210932	$2 835	$1 268	206	$13 440	$6 011
6.	Deutsche Post	502545	$5 999	$2 777	75	$11 937	$5 526
52.	Bank of China	209265	$2 386	$3 852	255	$11 402	$18 407
10.	McDonald's	447000	$2 046	$2 602	318	$4 577	$5 821

List of companies sorted by profit per employee

'	Company name	Employees	Revenue million $	Profit million $	Fortune Global 500 rank	Revenue $/employee	Profit $/employee
29.	Citigroup	303000	$131 045	$24 589	14	$432 492	$81 152
35.	HSBC Holdings	284000	$93 494	$15 873	26	$329 204	$55 891
27.	General Electric	316000	$157 153	$16 353	11	$497 320	$51 750
15.	Gazprom	396571	$50 824	$14 865	102	$128 159	$37 484
59.	France Télécom	203008	$60 933	$7 094	71	$300 151	$34 944
48.	Verizon Communications	217000	$75 112	$7 397	50	$346 138	$34 088
42.	Deutsche Telekom	243695	$74 062	$6 939	54	$303 913	$28 474
55.	Telefónica	207641	$48 833	$5 524	108	$235 180	$26 604
39.	Nestlé	250000	$74 659	$6 416	53	$298 636	$25 664
25.	Intl. Business Machines	329373	$91 134	$7 934	29	$276 689	$24 088
33.	Home Depot	289800	$81 511	$5 838	43	$281 266	$20 145
30.	China Construction Bank	300288	$22 771	$5 749	277	$75 831	$19 145
52.	Bank of China	209265	$2 386	$3 852	255	$11 402	$18 407
46.	Mittal Steel	224286	$28 132	$3 365	208	$125 429	$15 003
47.	United Technologies	222200	$42 725	$3 069	126	$192 282	$13 812
41.	Tyco International	247900	$4 178	$3 032	136	$16 854	$12 231
40.	Robert Bosch	248853	$52 208	$2 919	99	$209 795	$11 730
17.	Industrial Commercial Bank of China	361623	$29 167	$4 114	199	$80 656	$11 376
37.	Tesco	273024	$71 128	$2 821	59	$260 519	$10 332
16.	DaimlerChrysler	382724	$186 106	$3 536	7	$486 267	$9 239
61.	Hutchison Whampoa	200000	$23 475	$1 844	259	$117 375	$9 220
57.	SNCF	205839	$26 086	$1 579	229	$126 730	$7 671
21.	Target	338000	$5 262	$2 408	97	$15 568	$7 124
31.	Ford Motor	300000	$17 721	$2 024	9	$59 070	$6 747
50.	FedEx	215838	$29 363	$1 449	197	$136 042	$6 713
1.	Wal-Mart Stores	1800000	$315 654	$11 231	2	$175 363	$6 239
9.	Siemens	461000	$100 099	$2 855	22	$217 134	$6 193
54.	Peugeot	208500	$69 915	$1 279	60	$335 324	$6 134
44.	Federated Dept. Stores	232000	$23 347	$1 406	262	$100 634	$6 060
51.	Hon Hai Precision Industry	210932	$2 835	$1 268	206	$13 440	$6 011
13.	China Telecommunications	407982	$22 736	$2 376	279	$55 728	$5 824
10.	McDonald's	447000	$2 046	$2 602	318	$4 577	$5 821
6.	Deutsche Post	502545	$5 999	$2 777	75	$11 937	$5 526
34.	Toyota Motor	285977	$185 805	$1 212	8	$649 720	$4 238
23.	Matsushita Electric Industrial	334402	$78 558	$1 364	47	$234 921	$4 079
8.	UES of Russia	461200	$27 768	$1 868	213	$60 208	$4 050
11.	Carrefour	440479	$94 455	$1 784	25	$214 437	$4 050
20.	Volkswagen	344902	$118 377	$1 392	17	$343 219	$4 036
5.	Sinopec	730800	$98 785	$2 668	23	$135 174	$3 651
53.	Royal Mail Holdings	208866	$16 154	$705	417	$77 341	$3 375
49.	Deutsche Bahn	216389	$31 132	$721	188	$143 871	$3 332
32.	Kroger	290000	$60 553	$958	73	$208 803	$3 303
38.	Veolia Environnement	271153	$31 368	$774	185	$115 684	$2 854
60.	Safeway	201000	$38 416	$561	146	$191 124	$2 791
19.	Sears Holdings	355000	$49 124	$858	107	$138 377	$2 417
28.	La Poste	303405	$24 018	$692	252	$79 162	$2 281
56.	Unilever	206000	$49 581	$468	106	$240 684	$2 272
43.	Albertson's	234000	$40 397	$446	139	$172 637	$1 906
4.	U.S. Postal Service	803000	$69 907	$1 445	61	$87 057	$1 800
3.	State Grid	844031	$86 984	$1 074	32	$103 058	$1 272
2.	China National Petroleum	1090232	$83 557	$1 295	39	$76 641	$1 188
14.	United Parcel Service	407000	$42 581	$387	129	$104 622	$951
26.	Sodexho Alliance	324446	$14 819	$202	459	$45 675	$623
24.	China State Construction	332585	$14 122	$166	486	$42 461	$499
58.	Metro	204076	$72 814	$66	55	$356 798	$323
36.	China Railway Engineering	280581	$15 294	$83	441	$54 508	$296
7.	Agricultural Bank of China	478895	$17 166	$127	377	$35 845	$265
45.	China Railway Construction	227000	$14 139	$53	485	$62 286	$233
18.	Hitachi	355879	$83 596	$33	38	$234 900	$93
12.	Compass Group	410074	$23 469	$2	260	$57 231	$5
22.	General Motors	335000	$192 604	$(10 567)	5	$574 937	$-31 543

Indian Railways?

I thought Indian Railways is the largest employer in the world. It says so on the Wikipedia Article and several other sites and Guinness World books of Records. (1.5 million employees) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.99.99.53 (talk) 14:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the reasoning is the belief at it is not a "company," but instead a branch of the Indian government. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a myth. BBC and several other sources have busted it. Wikipedia cannot be trusted so much. On this very page, someone's been trying to tamper the info. Mehfoos (talk) 09:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Catholic Church

According to the article Catholic Church, that church has 1,402,989 "personnel". In terms of numbers, that puts it in 4th place on the list.

CBHA (talk) 17:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

More than one million only in the US, where it is far from being the majority religion. If we add all the millions in service in Europe and Southern America, It might be the largest organisation in the world. --176.62.41.204 (talk) 11:52, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Updating

I think it is a mistake to fix the list to the end of 2007, in some years it will be totally irrelevant. Either the title should be changed to "List of companies by employees 2007" and a new article should be created for each year or the article should be updated to the latest known numbers, maybe with sections on historical numbers.82.209.156.151 (talk) 12:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

NHS

The National Health Service would not appear on the Revenue lists, however they employ a huge amount of personnel. the NHS employ around 1.5 million people so should be on the list —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.105.174.33 (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Foxconn

Foxconn has 920,000 employees. Also think, this list should be renamed "List of companies by employees 2007". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.103.95 (talk) 14:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Foxconn wikipedia page now claims 4.3 million employees as of their 2014/15 annual report. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.216.44 (talk) 22:04, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Aramark

US food services company Aramark has 255,000 employees so should be included towards the end of the list as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.149.31.232 (talk) 01:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Accenture

Has 624,000 employees accoring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.216.90.104 (talk) 09:40, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Why is Accenture tagged as US? Should be Irish? 78.35.176.229 (talk) 10:52, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Temp Agencies

On John Gibson's radio show today, he said the two largest employers were Walmart and a temp agency. I was wondering which one he was referring to but didn't see it listed.65.36.99.94 (talk) 06:18, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Kelly ServicesRobinrobin (talk) 06:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Manpower Inc had about 30 000 internal staff and 4 000 000 external in 2008/2009. Hellsop (talk) 15:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

US and China's comparison

When I was checking the "United States Department of Defense" employees, it took into account the reserved. Meanwhile, when I checked the "People's Liberation Army", it only took into account the active personnel. This would be unfair for the statistic. The reserve personnel should be taken into account for the "People's Liberation Army" as well, since it was also applied to the "United States Department of Defense" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.106.40.162 (talk) 19:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

What he said dougmc (talk) 23:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

US DoD number?

According to the US Office of Personnel Management, the US had 1.583 million uniformed military personnel in 2011.

The US also had 2.820 million civilian employees- including all the government programs, employees, regulators, courts, legislative staff, and even the post office, etc.

The President's letter of October 1, 2013 about the government shutdown (when even contractors weren't allowed to work on government contracts) says "more than 2 million civilian workers and 1.4 million active duty military."

3.2M in just the DoD seems high.

Sources:

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/

http://www.usda.gov/POTUS-letter.pdf

US lists: Off topic?

I don't understand why the two US lists, interesting as they, are are on this page. Unless we do similar for the other 192 countries in the world, shouldn't these be on their own page or to a page on US Economy or US Labour? The second list is actually lists of employee per industry which also is not quite what the page is about.

Definitely useful to link to these though for comparison. Athosfolk (talk) 12:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Postal Service in list of private companies?

Why is the U.S. Postal Service, a U.S. government agency, listed in the list of top 10 "private" companies? The list description says that government-owned corporations are not included. --EngineeringGuy (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Sinopec in list of private companies?

Why is Sinopec under the list of largest non-government employers? It's a state-owned corporation, much like PetroChina (which is excluded from this list). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.93.49.21 (talk) 20:25, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

McDonald's does not employ 1.9 million

The McDonald's Corporation employs 440,000 people, according to their regulatory filing and reputable secondary sources. Franchises licensing the McDonald's name possibly employ over a million additional employees, but those aren't employed by McDonald's. The BBC and other news aggregators seem to have been confused by the company's quote of "1.9 million", which even when counting franchises seems overinflated. With 35,000 restaurants, this works out to 54 employees per restaurant, and still leaves 10,000 employees for headquarters. I suspect they include in that count independent cattle growers and other suppliers who work solely or primarily with McDonald's.

This is a lot like BP's TV ads, claiming they "provide work for almost a quarter million Americans", when in fact, fewer than 50,000 of those are actually U.S. BP employees.

When discussing the world's largest employers, it is important to distinguish between those affiliated with an employer, and those actually being employed by it. Owen× ☎ 01:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

McDonald's essentially IS a franchise, so counting the franchise employees does make sense to me. Actually, both sources explicitly state that franchise employees are included, I will put that in a footnote. Also, I don't see how a sparse Yahoo data entry is a more "reputable source" than full BBC and The Economist articles. Also, Forbes in its latest [1] statistic on the matter does include McDonald's as well. So the BBC, Forbes, and The Economist all got it wrong? It is possible, but it certainly is not likely. I think more solid sources on your claim would be needed, like maybe an article on how McDonald's is manipulating its employee count? Otherwise, I would have to discount your claim as original research. -- Theoprakt (talk) 21:15, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Plagiarism or Stasis?

I just wanted to include 2015 data, and found a list by the World Economic Forum's Henry Taylor, published on June 17, 2015: [2]. It was subsequently quoted by Forbes [3], by Business Insider and probably others. What makes me suspicious is that these are the exact same organizations and the exact same numbers that have been on Wikpedia for 2012 for several years now, which in turn are quoted from the BBCs. Given that between 2010 and 2012 there seems to have be a noticable change at least in the order of hunderd thousand employees, for almost all listed organizations, I wonder if we have fallen into some sort of economical stasis, or is there some serious plagiarism going on? -- Theoprakt (talk) 22:35, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Amazon Update

Amazon has been going nuts lately, bumping them up a few spots - https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-tops-750000-employees-first-time-adding-nearly-100000-people-three-months/ Care to update the stats a bit? Thanks! 2601:444:C302:2E09:C910:FFF3:E286:3A14 (talk) 20:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

As soon as Forbes updates their data, from which the entire list is sourced ([4]), we can update the article. Or another source that gives a list based on newer data could be used. Changing the ranking of a single company, even if a new number is sourced, would be "original research" in regard to the relationship with the other companies, because there is no source that verifies the overall order of the new list. See WP:SYNTHESIS. --IamNotU (talk) 14:44, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Tata Group

I have reverted this edit: [5], which added the Tata Group to the second list. Fortune doesn't consider the Tata Group holding company to be one single company, but lists the independently-operated companies separately in the "Global 500", on which this table is based. The largest in the Global 500, Tata Motors, has only 81,000 employees. Please don't add Tata Group to the list, since that contradicts the Fortune article that is cited as the source of the list and of the relative rankings of the companies. Adding it, even if there was a reliable source for the total number of employees of the entire group, would result in an overall list and ranking that is not verified in a published source, see WP:SYNTH. --IamNotU (talk) 03:35, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

National health service in twice?

How come the list has both the UK National Health Service and the National Health Service (England) ? Isn't the National Health Service (England) part of the UK National Health Service?

(the above is an unsigned comment from someone else) According to the wiki page National Health Service there is no UK NHS: there's NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and "Health and Social Care" in Northern Ireland . So really the UK NHS entry should be removed, I think? Steffens123 (talk) 02:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Remove Defence Departments from the List or update with correct numbers

Should be removed until proper numbers are implemented. - IE: Indias number includes active, reserve and civilian personell, China includes only active militray personal but no civilian, and US included active and civilian but not reserve personell. And North Korean numbers can not be indipendently verified. The numbers should be constant accross all oragnisations. 195.226.186.10 (talk) 10:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've adjusted your edit (the phrase you put in the lead was grammatically wrong), but otherwise your explanation is sufficient. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 10:43, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Define largest employers?

I'm new here, but wouldn't it make sense to include a definition of what "large employer" means in these lists? Kianoush Rahimi (talk) 23:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)