Being the largest company by any number of measures--revenues, earnings,
those kinds of yardsticks--is a good thing. Being the largest by number of
employees is trickier, unless yours is also the largest by those other
measures. As we have seen time and again in recent years in the pharma
industry, having lots of employees and falling revenues is a formula that leads
to layoffs.
As a whole, the top 10 companies had fewer employees at the end of 2012
than at the end of 2011. The contraction was not as large as you might expect
given the effects of patent losses for such huge blockbusters as Pfizer's Lipitor, which went off near the end of 2011, or Merck's Singulair. Total employment at reporting time was 921,375 last year, only 5,500
employees fewer than the year before. That is only an 0. 6% reduction.
Five companies ended the year with fewer employees: Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, Bayer Healthcare and AstraZeneca. Four actually grew employment: Novartis, Johnson & Johnson,
GlaxoSmithKline and Roche. One, Abbott
Laboratories ($ABT), was unchanged. The list covers a large range in numbers with the top
company having nearly 2.5 times the number of employees of the smallest on the
list, a total of 76,000 more.
A company's spot on this kind of list can change suddenly, however, because
M&A action can dramatically alter the employment picture at a company. Take
Johnson & Johnson, which hit the list at number 2. It added more employees
than any other company in the top 10 by a long shot, but that was in large part
due to its acquisition of devicemaker Synthes, which came with about 7,000
employees. Johnson & Johnson was also among only four companies in the top
10 to grow revenues last year. However, if you figure its revenues per
employee, which we did, you find it fell into the middle of the rankings.
Then there is Abbott. As I said, it reported absolutely no change from
year-end 2011 to year-end 2012. Then on Jan. 1 of this year, the employment
picture changed entirely. That is when it gave up 21,000 employees to its
spinoff AbbVie. As these things go, AbbVie is already trimming that number in
the face of generic competition for some of its cardiovascular drugs.
Like I said, it is tricky to measure, but it's always interesting to see who is growing and who is shrinking and why. So what follows is the ins and outs of the top 10 and their employment numbers. As always, we welcome your insights and your feedback.
Like I said, it is tricky to measure, but it's always interesting to see who is growing and who is shrinking and why. So what follows is the ins and outs of the top 10 and their employment numbers. As always, we welcome your insights and your feedback.