Tech companies employ far fewer workers than mid-century industrial giants

Evidence

We might turn to the technology sector, but, strictly speaking, this sector remains a relatively small part of the economy. In the United States it currently contributes around 6.8 per cent of the value added from private companies and employs about 2.5 per cent of the labour force. By comparison, manufacturing in the deindustrialised United States employs four times as many people. In the United Kingdom manufacturing employs nearly three times as many people as the tech sector. This is in part because tech companies are notoriously small. Google has around 60,000 direct employees, Facebook has 12,000, while WhatsApp had 55 employees when it was sold to Facebook for 19 billion and Instagram had 13 when it was purchased for 1 billion. By comparison, in 1962 the most significant companies employed far larger numbers of workers: AT&T had 564,000 employees, Exxon had 150,000 workers, and GM had 605,000 employees. Thus, when we discuss the digital economy, we should bear in mind that it is something broader than just the tech sector defined according to standard classifications. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 15

Categorization

• SHARE: WhatsApp’s 55 employees sold for $19bn (vs. GM’s 605,000 workers in 1962) is exactly the kind of comparison a financial-news friend would chew on.
• XREF: connects to: The tech sector’s GDP and employment footprints are surprisingly small — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 826; US public corporations employed under half their 1970 American workforce by 2000 — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 129; Most American businesses are tiny proprietorships despite employing few workers — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 621

Related

• The tech sector’s GDP and employment footprints are surprisingly small (similarity 0.88)
• GM employed more people in 1929 than Google or Facebook do at their peaks. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• US public corporations employed under half their 1970 American workforce by 2000 #exemplifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 129