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At first glance, Amazon alone employs more than half a million people. Microsoft is over 100k, Apple is about 80k in the US, google's about 60k, and Facebook is

At first glance, Amazon alone employs more than half a million people. Microsoft is over 100k, Apple is about 80k in the US, google's about 60k, and Facebook is around 17k.

CydeWeys 9y ago
I think that figure for Alphabet is off by at least a factor of two. Are we including staff worldwide, or just US-based staff? Full-time employees only, or also all contracted workers?
- ameister14 9y ago
  It was off by about 15k, apparently. https://www.recode.net/2017/7/24/16022210/alphabet-google-employment-employees-doubled-headcount https://www.recode.net/2017/7/24/16022210/alphabet-google-em...
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    That's only the headcount for full-time employees. You've got to at least double it to account for all the contractors as well.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      That ends up being rather circular though doesn’t it? Eg Amazon likely has someone who they employ but is contracted to sort of Netflix stuff. Who’s employee count do they add to?
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        It's not circular at all. Every single one of the employees I have in mind can be accounted for by Alphabet and Alphabet alone. We're talking security guards, cafe staff, customer support, janitors, receptionists, massage therapists, doctors, physical therapists, and any of dozens of different types of line of business stuff that doesn't use permanent employees (could be as simple as running the Google Books scanners or processing returned hardware). It's pretty simple to determine -- Who's paying the salary? Your example, of a contractor who is employed by Amazon to work on Netflix integrations for Amazon products, would count for Amazon, as the work is paid for by Amazon and is for Amazon's benefit. It wouldn't count for Netflix; we're only talking about employees whose salaries are being directly paid for by a company, not larger second-order ecosystem-type effects. That gets a lot harder. What I'm talking about is exact.
    - ameister14 9y ago
      Contractors are not employees.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        Yes, contractors are not full-time employees. So what? That's not at issue here. In this context, we're specifically talking about the number of jobs that are created by tech companies. It doesn't matter if you're paid on a W-2 or a 1099 from the tech company directly, or on a W-2 or a 1099 from some contracted company; if your living is being derived from working for that company in some capacity, it counts as a job created.
        ameister14 9y ago
        In that case we're talking about a few million jobs because the parts manufacturers, service providers, all applications and application developers using the systems and many others. Fine with me, I was originally pointing out that the number was greater than the 150k the person I responded to was assuming.

At first glance, Amazon alone employs more than half a million people. Microsoft is over 100k, Apple is about 80k in the US, google's about 60k, and Facebook is around 17k.

CydeWeys 9y ago

I think that figure for Alphabet is off by at least a factor of two. Are we including staff worldwide, or just US-based staff? Full-time employees only, or also all contracted workers?

ameister14 9y ago
It was off by about 15k, apparently. https://www.recode.net/2017/7/24/16022210/alphabet-google-employment-employees-doubled-headcount https://www.recode.net/2017/7/24/16022210/alphabet-google-em...
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  That's only the headcount for full-time employees. You've got to at least double it to account for all the contractors as well.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    That ends up being rather circular though doesn’t it? Eg Amazon likely has someone who they employ but is contracted to sort of Netflix stuff. Who’s employee count do they add to?
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      It's not circular at all. Every single one of the employees I have in mind can be accounted for by Alphabet and Alphabet alone. We're talking security guards, cafe staff, customer support, janitors, receptionists, massage therapists, doctors, physical therapists, and any of dozens of different types of line of business stuff that doesn't use permanent employees (could be as simple as running the Google Books scanners or processing returned hardware). It's pretty simple to determine -- Who's paying the salary? Your example, of a contractor who is employed by Amazon to work on Netflix integrations for Amazon products, would count for Amazon, as the work is paid for by Amazon and is for Amazon's benefit. It wouldn't count for Netflix; we're only talking about employees whose salaries are being directly paid for by a company, not larger second-order ecosystem-type effects. That gets a lot harder. What I'm talking about is exact.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Contractors are not employees.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      Yes, contractors are not full-time employees. So what? That's not at issue here. In this context, we're specifically talking about the number of jobs that are created by tech companies. It doesn't matter if you're paid on a W-2 or a 1099 from the tech company directly, or on a W-2 or a 1099 from some contracted company; if your living is being derived from working for that company in some capacity, it counts as a job created.
      - ameister14 9y ago
        In that case we're talking about a few million jobs because the parts manufacturers, service providers, all applications and application developers using the systems and many others. Fine with me, I was originally pointing out that the number was greater than the 150k the person I responded to was assuming.