How Many Companies in the U.S. Have Over 1000 Employees?

How many companies have 1000+ employees? This is a question I asked recently while doing some market research at FranklinCovey.  I looked in the traditional places but couldn’t find a consistent answer. I should say that I was not able to find an up to date answer for how many companies employ over 1000 people. So for everyone else asking the same question of the number of companies with 1000+ employees here is what I found so that you don’t have to search nearly as hard as I did. Here is some of the most relevant info I found.

U.S. Census Bureau – has a fantastic list that can be downloaded of companies in 2007 broken down by state but only lists the criteria to 500+ employees and not 1000+ employees. They also have this site that lists companies with over 1000 employees. The total number of companies it shows is 11,174.  This is the most accurate that I could find.  Here is how it is broken out.

Firms with 1,000 to 1,499 employees 2,916
Firms with 1,500 to 1,999 employees 1,542
Firms with 2,000 to 2,499 employees 942
Firms with 2,500 to 4,999 employees 1,920
Firms with 5,000 employees or more 1,927
Firms with 5,000 to 9,999 employees 952
Firms with 10,000 employees or more 975

Hoovers shows that it has data on 6994 companies with over 1000 employees. Hoovers is very accurate in the collection and sorting of data but does not look to have all records.

Companies with 1000+ Employees

Manta lists over 25k companies with over 1000 employees.  I looked through their lists for Utah and found multiple duplicates and several companies headquartered in other states that have a small office in Utah but are still listed.  Long story short the numbers here are inflated.

Companies with One Thousand Employees or more

Based on all of the data I found I would estimate that there are approximately 12,500 companies with more than 1000 employees in the U.S. currently.  We will know the exact number next year when the U.S. Census Bureau does there next study.

Thanks and Happy Marketing

Curtis J. Morley