Help for Number of Employees in our free company profiles

Number of employees is also a relatively uncomplicated measure of a size of business and is generally a good way to compare a company against industry averages. This measure can be impacted by the years in business (where a new business is likely to have fewer employees during start up years, for example). Even more likely to lend context to this measure is the level of annual sales where, in general, the more sales you have the more employees to have.

One thing to keep in mind here is the impact of outsourcing. In this scenario, a company could choose to outsource their warehousing, for example, and remove a number employees off their books. But their revenues are unchanged and their expenses shift from "payroll" to a "supplier".

See the Business information sites and resources page for more help on this topic.