Here at Political Calculations, the month of April means two things:
- 1. U.S. Income Tax returns are due.
- 2. Fortune has released its annual ranking of the largest U.S. companies by revenue!
While we can't pretend to be too happy about the first item on the list, the release of the Fortune 500 rankings represents a treasure trove of accumulated data that let's us measure the economic performance of the publicly-traded titans of the U.S. economy.
Our first dip into Fortune's 2006 data pool has produced another annual ranking: the top 10 companies by number of employees! The static table below provides the indicated companies' rank within the Fortune 500, their industry, the number of their employees reported this year, the number of their employee recorded last year and the percentage change between the two numbers:
| 2006 Fortune 500 Top 10 Employers | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Company | Industry | 2006 Number of Employees | 2005 Number of Employees | Pct. Change |
| 2 | Wal-Mart Stores | General Merchandisers | 1,800,000 | 1,600,000 | 12.5 |
| 109 | McDonald's | Food Services | 447,000 | 438,000 | 2.1 |
| 44 | United Parcel Service | Mail, Package & Freight Delivery | 407,000 | 384,000 | 6.0 |
| 33 | Sears Holdings | General Merchandisers | 355,000 | 380,000 | -6.6 |
| 14 | Home Depot | Specialty Retailers | 345,000 | 325,000 | 6.2 |
| 29 | Target | General Merchandisers | 337,000 | 300,000 | 12.3 |
| 10 | Intl. Business Machines | Computers, Office Equipment | 329,373 | 329,001 | 0.1 |
| 3 | General Motors | Motor Vehicles & Parts | 327,000 | 324,000 | 0.9 |
| 7 | General Electric | Diversified Financials | 316,000 | 307,000 | 2.9 |
| 8 | Citigroup | Commercial Banks | 303,000 | 290,500 | 4.3 |
Note: The number of employees for Sears Holdings in 2005 was determined by adding the number of employees of the pre-merged Sears Roebuck and Kmart Holdings for that year.
The top ten employers of the Fortune 500 index collectively employed 4,966,373 people in 2006, a 6.2% increase from the 4,677,501 they employed in 2005. Of the 10 companies, only Sears Holdings reduced its headcount following the merger of Sears Roebuck and Kmart Holdings in 2005.
Overall, the 2006 Fortune 500 companies employed 24,746,142 people, with the top 10 companies by number of employees representing some 20.1% of that total. By itself, Wal-mart Stores accounts for 7.3% of the total employment of the Fortune 500!
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
ironman at politicalcalculations
Thanks in advance!
Closing values for previous trading day.
This site is primarily powered by:
CSS Validation
RSS Site Feed
JavaScript
The tools on this site are built using JavaScript. If you would like to learn more, one of the best free resources on the web is available at W3Schools.com.
Other Cool Resources
Blog Roll
