The 20 Most and Least Profitable Companies, Per Employee

The 20 Most and Least Profitable Companies, Per Employee

The Fortune 500 is an elite club of the biggest American businesses, which combined to generate profits of over $1.2 trillion in 2019.

But how much profit do these companies make on a per employee basis?

This visualization uncovers the answer by comparing the 20 companies with the most and least returns per employee, using calculations from Tipalti (based on the Fortune 500 list).

Top 20: Most Profit per Employee

Diving right in, the companies that make the most money per employee may surprise you.

Housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take two of the top three spots, bringing in $1.9 million and $1.0 million per employee respectively in 2019.

The two U.S. government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are major players in the secondary mortgage market, buying and repackaging nearly half the mortgages in the country. The duo was allowed to retain their profits as of October 2019, instead of returning them to the U.S. Treasury.

Company	Sector	Profit per Employee	Profits ($M)	Employees
Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association)	Financials	$1,888,000	$14,160	7,500
KKR	Financials	$1,448,699	$2,005	1,384
Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation)	Financials	$1,046,721	$7,214	6,892
NRG Energy	Energy	$969,631	$4,438	4,577
EOG Resources	Energy	$943,103	$2,735	2,900
Biogen	Health Care	$795,811	$5,889	7,400
Blackstone Group	Financials	$705,680	$2,050	2,905
ConocoPhillips	Energy	$691,250	$7,189	10,400
Enterprise Products Partners	Energy	$628,904	$4,591	7,300
Visa	Business Services	$619,487	$12,080	19,500
Simon Property Group	Financials	$560,533	$2,102	3,750
Gilead Sciences	Health Care	$456,441	$5,386	11,800
Oneok	Energy	$443,789	$1,279	2,882
FM Global	Financials	$443,391	$2,479	5,591
Mastercard	Business Services	$436,452	$8,118	18,600
Cheniere Energy	Energy	$423,529	$648	1,530
Facebook	Technology	$411,308	$18,485	44,942
Apple	Technology	$403,328	$55,256	137,000
Cincinnati Financial	Financials	$384,038	$1,997	5,200
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance	Financials	$373,989	$3,701	9,896

Apple employs 137,000 people—the largest workforce by far among the 40 companies profiled—but still makes $403,328 per employee. Facebook is the only other tech giant to bring in more money per employee at $411,308.

Bottom 20: Least Profit per Employee

On the other end of the spectrum, Uber is one of the most well-known companies currently bleeding profits, losing $316K per employee. In fact, the ride-hailing service lost approximately $1.8 billion in the second quarter of 2020 alone.

Company	Sector	Profit per Employee	Profits ($M)	Employees
Apache	Energy	-$1,123,301	-$3,553	3,163
EnLink Midstream	Energy	-$825,830	-$1,119	1,355
Brighthouse Financial	Financials	-$556,391	-$740	1,330
PG&E	Energy	-$332,870	-$7,656	23,000
Frontier Communications	Telecommunications	-$322,706	-$5,911	18,317
Uber Technologies	Technology	-$316,208	-$8,506	26,900
Hess	Energy	-$229,859	-$408	1,775
Coty	Household Products	-$199,158	-$3,784	19,000
Devon Energy	Energy	-$197,222	-$355	1,800
Altria Group	Food, Beverages & Tobacco	-$177,123	-$1,293	7,300
National Oilwell Varco	Energy	-$175,927	-$6,095	34,645
Equitable Holdings	Financials	-$171,584	-$1,733	10,100
Chesapeake Energy	Energy	-$133,913	-$308	2,300
CenturyLink	Telecommunications	-$123,976	-$5,269	42,500
Mosaic	Chemicals	-$84,683	-$1,067	12,600
Alcoa	Materials	-$81,522	-$1,125	13,800
Targa Resources	Energy	-$77,985	-$209	2,680
Voya Financial	Financials	-$58,500	-$351	6,000
Wayfair	Retailing	-$57,992	-$985	16,985
Occidental Petroleum	Energy	-$46,319	-$667	14,400

COVID-19 has also had an intense effect on some of the companies at the bottom end of the profit per employee spectrum. Chesapeake Energy and Frontier Communications are just two examples that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in recent months—they each lost $134K and $322K per employee in 2019 respectively.

I’m pretty confident we will see more bankruptcies than in any business person’s lifetime.

—James Hammond, CEO of BankruptcyData

Profit per Employee by Sector

When all the companies in the Fortune 500 are taken into account, sector-specific numbers reveal interesting trends.

Financials bring in the most profit per employee at $116K, while Food and Drug Stores see 17 times less profit at $6.7K per employee. In fact, eight out of the top 20 most profitable companies are found in the financial sector.

Sector	Profits per Employee	Profits ($M)	Employees
Financials	$116,228	$378,445	3,256,067
Technology	$87,532	$252,836	2,888,490
Energy	$85,547	$75,410	881,505
Media	$57,947	$21,634	373,333
Health Care	$54,679	$145,166	2,654,872
Telecommunications	$50,636	$38,251	755,417
F&B incl. Tobacco	$41,946	$42,924	1,023,317
Business Services	$39,354	$36,835	936,000
Chemicals	$27,977	$11,328	404,888
Apparel	$26,154	$7,776	297,300
Industrials	$25,827	$27,006	1,045,675
Aerospace & Defence	$24,793	$23,903	964,100
Household Products	$24,504	$10,415	425,038
Transportation	$21,762	$32,454	1,491,358
Engineering & Construction	$19,648	$6,773	344,716
Materials	$13,408	$6,024	449,252
Retailing	$10,373	$67,318	6,489,923
Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure	$9,653	$16,880	1,748,714
Wholesalers	$9,025	$5,842	647,312
Motor Vehicles & Parts	$8,113	$7,108	876,123
Food & Drug Stores	$6,746	$8,355	1,238,645

Interestingly, as a whole, the energy sector comes in third place in terms of profit per employee at $86K—that said, nine out of the bottom 20 least profitable companies are also found in this highly volatile industry.

Though the vast majority of businesses impacted by COVID-19 have been small to mid-sized companies, the above calculations also show that Fortune 500 companies are not safe, either.