Peter Brown
PAYdata Blog, 21 February 2011
 

As you have probably noticed, we have a certain fascination with numbers.  But, my goodness, some of those numbers have been depressing recently!
 
Unemployment about to hit 2.5 million; jobless 18-24 year olds up 66,000 to 965,000, the Retail Price Index (RPI) at 5.1%, CPI twice the 2% target, university tuition fees for Oxbridge set to rise to £9,000 a year.  Not a lot of joy in those numbers.

It therefore made a nice change to read some good news this month about G4S, the security organisation.  People Management Magazine reported that G4S are launching an overhauled version of its global engagement survey.  Impressively, it will be gathering data from its people in 120 countries.

But the nugget of information that really made me do a double take was that G4S is not only the largest employer on the London Stock Exchange, it is also “…the second-largest global private-sector employer with 625,000 staff…”  Now, I must admit, despite considering myself fairly well informed, that fact took me by surprise. 

I immediately rushed off to Google “world’s largest employers”, not only to confirm G4S’s number two position, but also out of curiosity to find out who surpassed them.  In the back of my mind, I thought this could be the type of information that would come in handy in some future quiz night.

It proved to be a little difficult to get an up to date list of employee numbers.  For example, G4S does not even appear in the Wikipedia “List of Companies by Employees”.  Anyway, there seems to be a consensus on who is the largest private employer.  That honour goes to Wal-Mart, with something in the region of a staggering 2.1 million employees.  Just to put that in context that means that Wal-Mart employs about four times the population of Luxembourg. 

However, even Wal-Mart is overtaken when you consider the public as well as private sector.  The overall winner is none other than the People’s Liberation Army of China at 2.3 million employees.   The Indian State Railway is right up there too in third place whilst our own National Health Service comes in forth, at 1.3 million in England, 1.7m if Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are included.  G4S is in sixth place in the world overall.

I am sure there may be some profound conclusions to draw from the fact that these lists include an army, a company that protects people and another that provides healthcare.  Whatever it is, it escapes me for the moment.  Instead, I am just bowled over by the numbers.

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