Markets
Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023
Ranking America’s Best Places to Work
What better way to know more about a company’s work culture than to hear from those who’ve already been on the inside?
In the above graphic, we dissect how America’s top employers have changed over the last five years based on employee reviews on Glassdoor, a website that allows current and former employees to anonymously review their employers on things like company culture, pay, benefits, diversity, and more.
Tech Fares Best
Despite widescale layoffs in 2022, technology companies made up more than 40% of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list in 2023. Gainsight, a customer success software company founded in 2009, entered the top 15 ranking for the first time in five years and took the number one spot as the year’s best employer.
The dominance of technology companies in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list is nothing new, though. Companies like HubSpot and NVIDIA are staples on the list, with consistent praise from their employees when it comes to pay, benefits, leadership, and career growth.
Rank | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Bain & Company | HubSpot | Bain & Company | NVIDIA | Gainsight |
#2 | Zoom Video Communications | Bain & Company | NVIDIA | HubSpot | Box |
#3 | In-N-Out Burger | DocuSign | In-N-Out Burger | Bain & Company | Bain & Company |
#4 | Procore Technologies | In-N-Out Burger | HubSpot | eXp Realty | McKinsey & Company |
#5 | Boston Consulting Group | Sammons Financial Group Companies | McKinsey & Company | Box | NVIDIA |
While tech tends to be popular among employees, the industry isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to good employee reviews.
Take Bain & Company, a management consulting firm with over 10,000 employees, that’s been consistently ranking in the top three over the last five years. Or look at fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger, whose employees consistently rave about good pay and schedule flexibility in anonymous Glassdoor reviews, making the company one of America’s top 20 employers since 2015.
Analyzing Ranking by Company
Diving into the ranking by company can also give us a good understanding of how some of the giants compare to others in the field.
Looking at the above visual, you might notice that two regular winners, Apple and Meta, did not make the top 100 this year. Salesforce’s ranking also fell below the top 50 for the first time since 2015, coming in at #75. While tech fared relatively well in 2023, these companies tumbled down and off the list, making way for smaller tech companies like Gainsight, Box, and MathWorks.
As the global economy faces uncertainty in 2023, it’ll be interesting to observe how these companies fare in terms of employee satisfaction. Against the backdrop of layoffs and slower economic growth, how leadership navigates hard conversations and steps up for their employees may be very telling, potentially resulting in a completely different makeup of the list in 2024.
Markets
Which Countries Hold the Most U.S. Debt?
Foreign investors hold $7.3 trillion of the national U.S. debt. These holdings declined 6% in 2022 amid a strong U.S. dollar and rising rates.

Which Countries Hold the Most U.S. Debt in 2022?
Today, America owes foreign investors of its national debt $7.3 trillion.
These are in the form of Treasury securities, some of the most liquid assets worldwide. Central banks use them for foreign exchange reserves and private investors flock to them during flights to safety thanks to their perceived low default risk.
Beyond these reasons, foreign investors may buy Treasuries as a store of value. They are often used as collateral during certain international trade transactions, or countries can use them to help manage exchange rate policy. For example, countries may buy Treasuries to protect their currency’s exchange rate from speculation.
In the above graphic, we show the foreign holders of the U.S. national debt using data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Top Foreign Holders of U.S. Debt
With $1.1 trillion in Treasury holdings, Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt.
Japan surpassed China as the top holder in 2019 as China shed over $250 billion, or 30% of its holdings in four years.
This bond offloading by China is the one way the country can manage the yuan’s exchange rate. This is because if it sells dollars, it can buy the yuan when the currency falls. At the same time, China doesn’t solely use the dollar to manage its currency—it now uses a basket of currencies.
Here are the countries that hold the most U.S. debt:
Rank | Country | U.S. Treasury Holdings | Share of Total |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 🇯🇵 Japan | $1,076B | 14.7% |
2 | 🇨🇳 China | $867B | 11.9% |
3 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | $655B | 8.9% |
4 | 🇧🇪 Belgium | $354B | 4.8% |
5 | 🇱🇺 Luxembourg | $329B | 4.5% |
6 | 🇰🇾 Cayman Islands | $284B | 3.9% |
7 | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | $270B | 3.7% |
8 | 🇮🇪 Ireland | $255B | 3.5% |
9 | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $226B | 3.1% |
10 | 🇮🇳 India | $224B | 3.1% |
11 | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong | $221B | 3.0% |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | $217B | 3.0% |
13 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $215B | 2.9% |
14 | 🇫🇷 France | $189B | 2.6% |
15 | 🇸🇬 Singapore | $179B | 2.4% |
16 | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $120B | 1.6% |
17 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $103B | 1.4% |
18 | 🇩🇪 Germany | $101B | 1.4% |
19 | 🇳🇴 Norway | $92B | 1.3% |
20 | 🇧🇲 Bermuda | $82B | 1.1% |
21 | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | $67B | 0.9% |
22 | 🇲🇽 Mexico | $59B | 0.8% |
23 | 🇦🇪 UAE | $59B | 0.8% |
24 | 🇦🇺 Australia | $57B | 0.8% |
25 | 🇰🇼 Kuwait | $49B | 0.7% |
26 | 🇵🇭 Philippines | $48B | 0.7% |
27 | 🇮🇱 Israel | $48B | 0.7% |
28 | 🇧🇸 Bahamas | $46B | 0.6% |
29 | 🇹🇭 Thailand | $46B | 0.6% |
30 | 🇸🇪 Sweden | $42B | 0.6% |
31 | 🇮🇶 Iraq | $41B | 0.6% |
32 | 🇨🇴 Colombia | $40B | 0.5% |
33 | 🇮🇹 Italy | $39B | 0.5% |
34 | 🇵🇱 Poland | $38B | 0.5% |
35 | 🇪🇸 Spain | $37B | 0.5% |
36 | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | $37B | 0.5% |
37 | 🇨🇱 Chile | $34B | 0.5% |
38 | 🇵🇪 Peru | $32B | 0.4% |
All Other | $439B | 6.0% |
As the above table shows, the United Kingdom is the third highest holder, at over $655 billion in Treasuries. Across Europe, 13 countries are notable holders of these securities, the highest in any region, followed by Asia-Pacific at 11 different holders.
A handful of small nations own a surprising amount of U.S. debt. With a population of 70,000, the Cayman Islands own a towering amount of Treasury bonds to the tune of $284 billion. There are more hedge funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands per capita than any other nation worldwide.
In fact, the four smallest nations in the visualization above—Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Luxembourg—have a combined population of just 1.2 million people, but own a staggering $741 billion in Treasuries.
Interest Rates and Treasury Market Dynamics
Over 2022, foreign demand for Treasuries sank 6% as higher interest rates and a strong U.S. dollar made owning these bonds less profitable.
This is because rising interest rates on U.S. debt makes the present value of their future income payments lower. Meanwhile, their prices also fall.
As the chart below shows, this drop in demand is a sharp reversal from 2018-2020, when demand jumped as interest rates hovered at historic lows. A similar trend took place in the decade after the 2008-09 financial crisis when U.S. debt holdings effectively tripled from $2 to $6 trillion.
Driving this trend was China’s rapid purchase of Treasuries, which ballooned from $100 billion in 2002 to a peak of $1.3 trillion in 2013. As the country’s exports and output expanded, it sold yuan and bought dollars to help alleviate exchange rate pressure on its currency.
Fast-forward to today, and global interest-rate uncertainty—which in turn can impact national currency valuations and therefore demand for Treasuries—continues to be a factor impacting the future direction of foreign U.S. debt holdings.
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