America’s Most Valuable Companies Ranked by Profit per Employee

Ever wonder how much money major corporations make per employee? Profit Per Employee (PPE) is determined by dividing the company’s profit by the company’s quantity of full-time employees. The most profitable companies may not necessarily be the most profitable by number of employees—and vice versa. Whenever the economy is uncertain, this formula is usually one of the metrics companies will monitor to determine the efficiency and productivity of their staff. Using data over profit and company size from 2023, our team at The Chartistry has ranked the top 50 companies with the highest profit per worker.

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With a profit of nearly $2 million for each of their 9,500 employees, ConocoPhillips ranks first for highest profit per employee by quite the large margin. ConocoPhillips, an American oil and gas producer, saw a total profit almost $18.7 billion in 2023. Since oil and gas are two of the most valuable energy commodities in the world, it is not uncommon for an energy company to rank high in terms of PPE since their net profit is typically quite expansive. Of the top 50 companies with the highest profit for every employee, six of them can be categorized under the energy sector.

Coming in second place, Prologis is an investment trust company that saw a total profit of $3.4 billion in 2023. This profit was divided by their 2,466 employees to end with a profit of $1.36 million per employee.

In third, there is the tobacco company Altria Group. Altria Group’s 2023 profit of $5.8 billion was divided by 6,300 employees to result in a profit per employee of $915 thousand. Tobacco is yet another commodity product, with only one other tobacco company making the top 50 ranking.

Exxon Mobil is another oil and gas company with high profit per employee, coming in fourth place. Out of their profit of $55.7 million in 2023, their 62,000 employees averaged a profit of $899 thousand each.

Rounding out the top 5 companies is Chevron, the third oil and gas energy company in the top companies by profit per employee. With a total profit of $35.3 million, their PPE comes out to $809 thousand for each of their 43,846 employees.

Some companies land rank in both the most profitable in the world overall as well as in profit per worker. Apple, for example, brought in a 2023 profit of nearly a $100 billion. The company itself is valued at a total of $2.1 trillion. They managed a PPE of $609 thousand for their 164,000 employees, making them seventh among all companies.

Why is Profit per Employee Important?

For every company with an impressive profit per employee, there are tens, hundreds, even thousands of people working at the front line and behind the scenes to keep operations running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. PPE, not to be confused with Revenue per Employee, is a way for the company to measure the performance and productivity of the average employee in any given workforce to judge their added value. In other words, a way to know if their investment in hiring, retaining, and training their employees returned desirable results. Of course, it isn’t and shouldn’t be the only method to judge the value of an employee. When used in combination with other metrics, however, it can be a helpful tool to see the what employees have brought to the company.

For the majority of situations, a healthy profit per employee will be a good indicator of the health of the company at large. It shows that the business is properly maximizing the streamlining of their operations and utilizing the talent of each employee. This performance can mean that an underwhelming PPE may lead to cost-cutting measures for the company. Oftentimes, this is in the form of employee layoffs in areas that may not be contributing to the overall profit.

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The Profit per Employee of the Largest Companies in the U.S. By Market Cap (The Full List)