To provide some context for appreciating the statistics related to the largest private employers in the U.S., let’s begin with the two largest public employers in the country. Those two employers are the Department of Defense, which with 3.2 million employees is the largest employer in the world, and the U.S. Postal Service, which with 601,000 employees is the third largest employer, public or private, in the U.S.
So, the Department of Defense has a million more employees—or almost 50% more–than WalMart has, and to provide some added perspective, the People’s Liberation Army of China has 2.3 million employees, or only about 100,000 more employees than Walmart has. More tellingly, the total for the Department of Defense does not include the 240,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security, and it includes only direct employees—not the employees of weapons producers, private suppliers, or private security contractors.
The following employment statistics for the largest private employers in the U.S. are taken from Census Bureau reports. The stock price information is taken from an article in USA Today [http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/22/ten-largest-employers/2680249/]:
1. Walmart
Total employees: 2.2 million
1-yr. stock price change: +1.7%
2. Yum! Brands
Total employees: 523,000
1-yr. stock price change: +9.9%
3. McDonald’s
Total employees: 440,000
1-yr. stock price change: +9.3%
4. IBM
Total employees: 434,246
1-yr. stock price change: -8.3%
5. United Parcel Service
Total employees: 399,000
1-yr. stock price change: +12.9%
6. Target
Total employees: 361,000
1-yr. stock price change: +5.9%
7. Kroger
Total employees: 343,000
1-yr. stock price change: +71.5%
8. Home Depot
Total employees: 340,000
1-yr. stock price change: +31.0%
9. Hewlett-Packard
Total employees: 331,800
1-yr. stock price change: +32.4%
10. General Electric
Total employees: 305,000
1-yr. stock price change: +13.0%
So four of the top ten employers are retailers and two are fast-food restaurants. Most of their employees are categorized as low-wage. Of the other four employers, one is a delivery company, or a service provider. Two are tech companies that employ most of their production workers overseas; so many of their U.S. employees hold service-related positions. And only one of the largest employers, General Electric, is anything close to the classic American corporation of the mid-twentieth century–though it has become so diversified that it is hard to describe it simply or even primarily as a manufacturer and, again, many of its production facilities are now located overseas.
It seems notable that none of the ten largest employers nationally are banks or energy companies. Some of the banks are among the top 25 employers, but none of the energy companies—not Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66, or Valero Energy, which, respectively rank 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 10th in the 2014 Fortune 500.
Likewise, it seems notable that none of the ten largest employers nationally are steel producers, auto manufacturers, or other durable goods producers—and that, from that category, only General Motors appears among the top 25 employers. Those industries have not disappeared from the U.S., but they have all become very automated and most of the high-wage jobs that they used to provide have disappeared. On the 2014 Fortune 500 list, General Motors still ranks 7th and Ford Motor Company ranks 8th.
11. Tata Consultancy Services
Total employees: 300,464
12. Sears Holdings
Total employees: 293,000
13. Bank of America
Total employees: 281,791
14. Berkshire Hathaway
Total employees: 270,858
15 Citigroup
Total employees: 266,000
16. Wells Fargo
Total employees: 264,200
17 J.P. Morgan Chase
Total employees: 260,157
18. AT&T
Total employees: 256,420
19. FedEx
Total employees: 255,573
20. Walgreens
Total employees: 211,500
21. General Motors
Total employees: 207,000
22. Lowe’s
Total employees: 204,767
23. Aramark
Total employees: 203,500
24. United Technologies
Total employees: 199,900
25. Verizon Communications
Total employees: 193,900
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