US Top 50 Big Corps Added 1 Employee in Past 2 Years For Each $1.8 mil of Higher Profit

The 50 Most Profitable US Big Corps generated $742 bil of Total Pretax Income in 2011, as compared with Total Pretax Income of $402 bil in 2009, for an increase of $340 bil, or 85%.

I am including here foreign-owned Corps Royal Dutch Shell and BP, since they both have such substantial operations in the US.

I am excluding US Big Corps which had huge acquisitions in the most recent two years, since this distorts the number of employees added in the past two years.  Thus, I excluded Oracle, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Comcast, Abbott Labs and Schlumberger for this reason.

I also excluded giant Retailers Walmart, McDonalds, and Home Depot, since a substantial portion of their employee adds are part-time workers, whose pay isn't even close to being at a livable wage.

In deriving Pretax Income, I start with Pretax Income under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and then exclude several clearly unusual very large items relative to Pretax Income, such as Asset Impairments like the Oil and Gas Property Impairments under the ceiling test and Intangible Asset Impairments, as well as Gains and Losses on Asset Sales, and Mark-to-Market Pension Adjustments.  I also exclude very large highly unusual items such as the BP Gulf Oil Spill Charges and Berkshire Hathaway's Derivative and Investment Gains and Losses.

OK, so that $340 bil of Pretax Profit increase is just great.  But just how well was this shared with stimulating the world economy by adding employees?  Well, not so great.

From SEC filings, these 50 US Big Corps had increased their total number of worldwide employees by 193,811, or by only 3% in the past two years, going from 5,822,711 in fiscal year end 2009 to 6,016,522 in fiscal year end 2011.

This equates to 1 Employee Added by these 50 US Big Corps in the most recent 2 years for each $1,755,597 of higher Pretax Profit.....the math is $340,254 mil of increased profit divided by 193,811 employee adds.

That's not even close to being fair to the 99% in the US.  Nor is it fair to the world's 99%.

When you review the below list of these 50 US Big Corps, there is one industry that is clearly doing its part in creating jobs.....The Technology Sector.  In the past two years, it generated higher total profit of 58%, while it added a pretty fair 15% to their total employee base.

Sectors doing the worst on the job front are:

.....Oil and Gas, which slashed 3% of their employees, while increasing their profits by 114%
.....Pharma, which slashed 6% of their employees, while increasing their profits by 24%
.....Big Communications (ATT and Verizon), which slashed 11% of their employees, while increasing their profits by 8%.

Clearly, the US Congress must design wise legislation which results in a much fairer sharing of economic benefits between the 1% Big Corps and the 99%.  One of the many reasons the US Congress has such incredibly low approval ratings is that they have horribly failed in this regard.

The US job creation of these Top 50 US Big Corps was even much worse than their job creation overseas.  Only a handful of these Top 50 disclosed their US number of employees, but here's what happened with some of the ones that did:

.....United Parcel Service slashed 10,000 jobs worldwide in the past two years, with 170% of them, or 17,000, slashed in the US.
.....Eli Lilly shed 2,280 jobs worldwide in the past two years, with 122% of them, or 2,780, shed in the US.
.....All 3,000 of GE's worldwide job losses in the past two years were in the US
.....Merck slashed 14,000 jobs worldwide in the past two years, with a huge 64% of them, or 8,900, slashed in the US.
.....Cisco Systems added 6,325 jobs worldwide in the past two years, with only 4% of them, or 250, added in the US. 
.....BP added 3,000 jobs worldwide in the past two years, with only 3% of them, or 100, added in the US.
.....3M added 9,363 jobs worldwide in the past two years, but with only 17% of them added in the US.
.....Caterpillar added 31,286 jobs worldwide in the past two years, but with only 32% of them added in the US.

The Second 50 US Big Corps haven't done quite as bad as the Top 50 on the job added front, but it is certainly nothing to write home about.

These Second 50 US Big Corps had a Total Pretax Income increase of 76% and a Total Number of Employees Added of 8% in the most recent two fiscal years.

I have included in these Second 50 several foreign owned Corps, which have substantial operations in the US.

Also, I am excluding from these Second 50, Corps which had either huge acquisitions or huge spinoffs in the most recent two years.  Thus I excluded Kraft Foods, Texas Instruments, Baker Hughes, Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, and Northrop Grumman. 

I also excluded large Retailers CVS Caremark, Target, Walgreens, and Lowes.


Below here is the Pretax Income (PTI) and number of worldwide employees from 2009 to 2011 of these 50 US Big Corps.  Also below here is a sorting of these 50 by selected sectors.  In addition, below here is the Second 50 US Big Corps.

									Two Year
				Two Year		WW		WW	Increase
				Increase		# of		# of	(Decrease)
		2011	2009	(Decrease)		Employees		Employees	# of WW
		PTI	PTI	in PTI		2011		2009	Employees
		mils $s	mils $s	mils $s
	Top 50
1	Exxon Mobil	73,257	34,777	38,480		99,100		102,700	(3,600)
2	Royal Dutch Shell	55,660	21,020	34,640		90,000		101,000	(11,000)
3	Chevron	47,634	18,528	29,106		61,000		64,000	(3,000)
4	BP	35,092	25,124	9,968		83,400		80,300	3,100
5	Apple	34,205	12,066	22,139		60,400		34,300	26,100
6	Microsoft	28,071	19,821	8,250		90,000		93,000	(3,000)
7	JPMorgan Chase	26,749	16,067	10,682		260,157		222,316	37,841
8	Wells Fargo	23,656	17,998	5,658		264,200		267,300	(3,100)
9	IBM	21,003	18,138	2,865		433,362		399,409	33,953
10	ConocoPhillips	20,994	9,582	11,412		29,800		30,000	(200)
11	General Electric	20,098	9,864	10,234		301,000		304,000	(3,000)
12	AT&T	20,087	18,733	1,354		256,000		281,000	(25,000)
13	Intel	17,781	8,401	9,380		100,100		79,800	20,300
14	JNJ	16,683	15,369	1,314		117,900		115,500	2,400
15	Verizon	16,448	14,957	1,491		193,900		222,900	(29,000)
16	Berkshire Hathaway	16,144	10,765	5,379		271,000		257,000	14,000
17	Procter & Gamble	15,189	14,413	776		129,000		132,000	(3,000)
18	Citigroup	14,624	(10,199)	24,823		266,000		265,300	700
19	Pfizer	14,438	10,780	3,658		103,700		110,600	(6,900)
20	Phillip Morris Intl	12,532	9,243	3,289		78,100		77,300	800
21	Google	12,326	8,381	3,945		32,467		19,835	12,632
22	Hewlett Packard	10,898	9,415	1,483		349,600		304,000	45,600
23	Occidental Petroleum	10,459	5,038	5,421		11,300		10,100	1,200
24	Freeport McMoran	8,818	5,816	3,002		31,800		28,400	3,400
25	Ford Motor	8,681	(2,067)	10,748		164,000		177,000	(13,000)
26	Merck	8,276	4,598	3,678		86,000		100,000	(14,000)
27	Apache	8,093	3,144	4,949		5,299		3,452	1,847
28	Walt Disney	8,043	5,658	2,385		156,000		144,000	12,000
29	United Health	7,959	5,808	2,151		99,000		80,000	19,000
30	Cisco Systems	7,825	7,693	132		71,825		65,500	6,325
31	United Technologies	7,605	5,760	1,845		199,900		206,700	(6,800)
32	GM	7,253	(24,473)	31,726		207,000		215,000	(8,000)
33	BristolMyersSquibb	6,981	5,602	1,379		27,000		28,000	(1,000)
34	American Express	6,956	2,841	4,115		62,500		58,300	4,200
35	Caterpillar	6,725	569	6,156		125,099		93,813	31,286
36	US Bancorp	6,629	2,632	3,997		62,529		58,229	4,300
37	Goldman Sachs	6,169	19,829	(13,660)		33,300		32,500	800
38	Eli Lilly	6,139	6,141	(2)		38,080		40,360	(2,280)
39	Morgan Stanley	6,114	1,130	4,984		61,899		61,388	511
40	Altria Group	6,072	4,877	1,195		9,900		10,000	(100)
41	3M	6,031	4,632	1,399		84,198		74,835	9,363
42	United Parcel Service	5,776	3,073	2,703		398,000		408,000	(10,000)
43	Qualcomm	5,687	3,416	2,271		21,200		16,100	5,100
44	Visa	5,656	3,527	2,129		7,500		5,700	1,800
45	Boeing	5,393	1,731	3,662		171,700		157,100	14,600
46	Union Pacific	5,264	2,974	2,290		44,861		43,531	1,330
47	MetLife	5,202	505	4,697		67,000		54,000	13,000
48	Prudential Fincl	5,117	1,524	3,593		50,104		41,943	8,161
49	Amgen	4,936	5,204	(268)		17,800		17,200	600
50	Capital One Fincl	4,587	1,336	3,251		31,542		28,000	3,542
	Total all 50	742,015	401,761	340,254		6,016,522		5,822,711	193,811
	% Increase			85%					3%
	Selected Sectors
									Two Year
				Two Year		WW		WW	Increase
				Increase		# of		# of	(Decrease)
		2011	2009	(Decrease)		Employees		Employees	# of WW
		PTI	PTI	in PTI		2011		2009	Employees
		mils $s	mils $s	mils $s
	Big Technology
	Apple	34,205	12,066	22,139		60,400		34,300	26,100
	Microsoft	28,071	19,821	8,250		90,000		93,000	(3,000)
	IBM	21,003	18,138	2,865		433,362		399,409	33,953
	Intel	17,781	8,401	9,380		100,100		79,800	20,300
	Google	12,326	8,381	3,945		32,467		19,835	12,632
	Hewlett Packard	10,898	9,415	1,483		349,600		304,000	45,600
	Cisco Systems	7,825	7,693	132		71,825		65,500	6,325
	Qualcomm	5,687	3,416	2,271		21,200		16,100	5,100
	Total all 8	137,796	87,331	50,465		1,158,954		1,011,944	147,010
	% Increase			58%					15%
	Big Oil and Gas
	Exxon Mobil	73,257	34,777	38,480		99,100		102,700	(3,600)
	Royal Dutch Shell	55,660	21,020	34,640		90,000		101,000	(11,000)
	Chevron	47,634	18,528	29,106		61,000		64,000	(3,000)
	BP	35,092	25,124	9,968		83,400		80,300	3,100
	ConocoPhillips	20,994	9,582	11,412		29,800		30,000	(200)
	Occidental Petroleum	10,459	5,038	5,421		11,300		10,100	1,200
	Apache	8,093	3,144	4,949		5,299		3,452	1,847
	Total all 7	251,189	117,213	133,976		379,899		391,552	(11,653)
	% Increase(Decrease)			114%					-3%
	Big Pharma
	JNJ	16,683	15,369	1,314		117,900		115,500	2,400
	Pfizer	14,438	10,780	3,658		103,700		110,600	(6,900)
	Merck	8,276	4,598	3,678		86,000		100,000	(14,000)
	BristolMyersSquibb	6,981	5,602	1,379		27,000		28,000	(1,000)
	Eli Lilly	6,139	6,141	(2)		38,080		40,360	(2,280)
	Total all 5	52,517	42,490	10,027		372,680		394,460	(21,780)
	% Increase(Decrease)			24%					-6%
									Two Year
				Two Year		WW		WW	Increase
				Increase		# of		# of	(Decrease)
		2011	2009	(Decrease)		Employees		Employees	# of WW
		PTI	PTI	in PTI		2011		2009	Employees
		mils $s	mils $s	mils $s
	Second 50
51	Halliburton	4,449	1,682	2,767		68,000		51,000	17,000
52	Time Warner	4,366	3,237	1,129		34,000		31,000	3,000
53	Devon Energy	4,290	1,882	2,408		5,200		5,400	(200)
54	DuPont	4,282	2,184	2,098		70,000		58,000	12,000
55	Dell	4,240	2,024	2,216		109,400		94,300	15,100
56	Deere	4,223	1,339	2,884		61,300		51,300	10,000
57	News Corp	4,177	2,161	2,016		51,000		55,000	(4,000)
58	Honeywell	4,084	2,705	1,379		132,000		122,000	10,000
59	PNC Financial	4,069	2,149	1,920		51,891		49,761	2,130
60	DirecTV	3,984	2,325	1,659		25,700		21,800	3,900
61	WellPoint	3,958	3,874	84		37,700		40,500	(2,800)
62	Dow Chemical	3,917	(422)	4,339		51,705		52,195	(490)
63	Newmont Mining	3,894	2,954	940		17,100		14,500	2,600
64	Medtronic	3,723	3,061	662		45,000		41,000	4,000
65	General Dynamics	3,718	3,513	205		95,100		91,700	3,400
66	Gilead Sciences	3,651	3,502	149		4,500		3,852	648
67	Lockheed Martin	3,631	4,182	(551)		123,000		140,000	(17,000)
68	Emerson Electric	3,631	2,450	1,181		133,200		129,000	4,200
69	Bank NY Mellon	3,617	(2,208)	5,825		48,700		42,200	6,500
70	Colgate Palmolive	3,582	3,538	44		38,600		38,100	500
71	MasterCard	3,516	2,218	1,298		6,700		5,100	1,600
72	Accenture	3,512	2,678	834		236,000		177,000	59,000
73	DiscoverFinclSvcs	3,511	229	3,282		11,650		10,500	1,150
74	Southern Copper	3,449	1,404	2,045		12,145		11,523	622
75	Corning	3,343	1,934	1,409		28,800		23,500	5,300
76	Valero Energy	3,322	(94)	3,416		21,942		20,920	1,022
77	EMC	3,249	1,375	1,874		53,600		43,200	10,400
78	Hess	3,248	1,522	1,726		14,350		13,300	1,050
79	Viacom	3,245	2,417	828		10,580		11,500	(920)
80	BlackRock	3,135	1,272	1,863		10,100		8,629	1,471
81	Aetna	3,078	1,901	1,177		33,300		35,000	(1,700)
82	LyondellBasell	3,017	(1,140)	4,157		14,000		14,860	(860)
83	ArcherDanielsMidland	3,015	2,500	515		30,700		28,200	2,500
84	ToyotaMotorCredt	3,003	(1,052)	4,055		3,170		3,300	(130)
85	AFLAC	2,992	2,235	757		8,284		8,057	227
86	Bank of America	2,954	4,360	(1,406)		282,000		284,000	(2,000)
87	Natl Oilwell Varco	2,922	2,208	714		42,183		32,423	9,760
88	Norfolk Southern	2,918	1,622	1,296		30,329		28,593	1,736
89	CSX	2,888	1,746	1,142		31,000		30,000	1,000
90	Chesapeake Energy	2,880	1,712	1,168		12,600		8,200	4,400
91	Nike	2,844	2,358	486		38,000		34,300	3,700
92	Baxter	2,809	2,734	75		48,500		49,700	(1,200)
93	Raytheon	2,690	2,930	(240)		71,000		75,000	(4,000)
94	Cummins	2,671	640	2,031		43,900		34,900	9,000
95	CF Industries	2,646	696	1,950		2,400		1,500	900
96	Franklin Resources	2,624	1,289	1,335		8,500		7,700	800
97	Illinois Tool Works	2,593	1,320	1,273		65,000		59,000	6,000
98	Mosaic	2,585	2,233	352		7,700		7,500	200
99	State Street Corp	2,536	2,525	11		29,740		27,310	2,430
100	Reynolds American	2,534	2,089	445		5,400		6,400	(1,000)
	Total Second 50	169,215	95,993	73,222		2,416,669		2,233,723	182,946
	% Increase			76%					8%