There are many factors that can determine the size of a company. One of them is the number of employees employed. It is worth noting that a company employing a large number of employees will also have a large revenue. According to USA Today, from the top 15 largest companies in the world, five had revenues of more than $100 billion in the recent fiscal year with Volkswagen, PetroChina, and Wal-Mart accounting for over a quarter of a trillion dollars each.
Many of the top companies in the world have established a dominant presence in their home market. Wal-Mart Stores have majority of their employees based in the United States. Its location in the United States has also been a significant factor in Wal-Mart becoming one of the largest companies in the world.
To come up with its list of the largest companies in the world, 24/7 Wall St. used employee figures from S & P Capital IQ. The firm considers part-time employees as half of a “full-time equivalent” worker. When no specific details are provided, S & P considers it as full time. Capital IQ converted revenue data for non-American companies into dollars according to the end date of their company’s filings. Here now are the top 5 largest companies in the world.
1. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - USA
Total Employees : 2,200,000
Revenue : $476.3 billion
Industry : Retail
Wal-Smart Stores manages the operations of Walmart, Sam’s Club, and other chains which make up around 2.2 million employees worldwide, of which 1.4 million come from the United States. The company contributed a notable share of the U.S. labor force which was slightly over 156 million as of July. Outside the United States, Wal-Mart Stores have over 200,000 employees in Mexico and almost 170,000 in the United Kingdom.
2.G4S plc - UK
Total employees: 618,000
Revenue: $12.3 billion
Industry: Security services
G4S is the largest security company in the world operating in 120 countries across the globe. Last year, the company made more than $12 billion worth of income. Secure solutions which take up ¾ of the company’s revenue, include risk management consulting, security systems monitoring, and manned security services.
3. Randstad Holding NV - Netherlands
Total employees: 595,730
Revenue: $22.8 billion
Industry: Human resources
Randstad is a company that specializes in human resources and also handles recruiting, interviewing, and testing the applicants that it places. While it only has just 28,030 corporate employees in over 3,161 branches, these workers have positioned more than 567,000 employees in different positions. It has also extended its services to payroll administration and medical insurance services for its clients.
4. Volkswagen AG - Germany
Total employees: 555,097
Revenue: $271.3 billion
Industry: Manufacturing
Volkswagen is ranked among the top car manufacturers in the world building over 9.7 million cars as of 2013. Auto manufacturing relies heavily on labor and no other car company can top the number of employees that Volkswagen has. The company has 545,596 active workers and another 9,501 in their partial retirement.
5. PetroChina Co. Ltd. - China
Total employees: 544,083
Revenue: $373.0 billion
Industry: Oil & gas
PetroChina ranks as one of the largest companies in the world in terms of market capitalization. It came about due to the restructuring of China National Petroleum Corporation which still owns 86% of PetroChina. Almost half of its employees focus on exploration and production work while the others are focused on marketing, refining, research, and other operations.
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