Do Modern, Tech Companies Employ More People than Older, Traditional Companies?

Newer tech companies tend to employ far fewer people than older, more traditionally structured companies. Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon collectively employed about 113,000 people as of 2011. By comparison, GM alone employed about 209,000 people as of 2011, General Electric employed about 287,000 as of 2010, and the Ford Motor Company employed about 164,000 as of 2010.

More facts about companies:

• Although older, traditional companies tend to employ more people than newer tech companies, new start-ups tend to add more jobs per year than older companies do.


• Only two of the world's largest employers as of 2010 were American: Wal-Mart, which was the largest employer worldwide, and McDonald's, which was the ninth-largest employer. The other largest employers included Indian Railways, the China National Petroleum Corporation, Britain's National Health Service and the State Grid Corporation of China. Sinopec, Deutsche Post, the Siemens Group and the French supermarket chain Carrefour also were in the top 10.


• Of the top 10 U.S. employers, only IBM and Hewlett-Packard are tech-focused companies.