Employee Ownership 100 List Announced

The largest 100 majority employee-owned companies in the U.S. employ approximately 594,144 people, up from 579,000 last year and 506,000 in 2005. Publix Supermarkets again topped the list with 143,000 employees. The smallest company on the list has 900 employees, up from 875 in 2006 and 700 in 2005. Sixteen of the Top 100 are construction firms, 13 manufacturing, 12 engineering, and 10 supermarkets. Rankings are based on the number of employees. To be on the list, the company must be majority-owned by an ESOP or similar plan or, if it is a different kind of plan (such as a stock purchase plan) at least half the stock must be owned by at least half the full-time employees meeting tenure-based eligibility requirements.

Total employment grew 4.3% in the companies that were on the list in both 2006 and 2007, more than double the national private sector job growth rate (albeit this is a very imperfect comparison given that in economy overall some companies close; here we just look at companies that stayed open and maintained enough employees to stay on the list)). Almost all the growth was accounted for by internal expansion, not acquisitions. Only one of the companies on the list in 2006 terminated its plan (the John Henry Company was sold). Ten new companies were added, while nine others dropped off the list because they were now not large enough to qualify.