Amazon hits 109,800 employees, passing Microsoft’s headcount for the first time

October 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Amazon hits 109,800 employees, passing Microsoft’s headcount for the first time

By Emil Protalinski, 9 hours ago

Amazon today released its Q3 2013 earnings report. Among all the financial figures showing a second straight quarterly loss was a very big milestone: the Seattle-based company now employs 109,800 people around the world as of September 30, 2013. Why is this significant? Not only has it passed the six-figure mark, but it has done so at a blistering rate; Amazon’s employee growth is frankly staggering.Last quarter, it had 97,000 employees, meaning it hired 12,800 (a growth of 11.66 percent) in just three months. In the Q3 2012 quarter, Amazon had 81,400 employees, meaning it has hired 28,400 people in the last 12 months. That’s a jump of 25.87 percent in just a year.

To put things further into perspective for you, Microsoft has had more employees than Amazon since the very beginning. This past quarter, the two Seattle-based companies shifted spots.

According to this Microsoft page, the company has 100,518 employees worldwide as of September 30, 2013. While that figure hasn’t been updated for October yet (Microsoft also released quarterly earnings today), neither has Amazon’s. Furthermore, it’s safe to say Microsoft won’t hire 10,000 employees overnight.

Microsoft still employs more people than Amazon in Seattle, but that shouldn’t be a big surprise. Amazon’s business requires a much bigger international presence, since it’s the Internet’s one-stop retail shop.

In fact, Amazon’s total includes workers at its various fulfillment centers around the globe. That’s the problem with comparing tech companies: no two are structured in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, it’s easy to Amazon’s headcount is growing very quickly.

Microsoft was founded in April 1975. Amazon didn’t get incorporated until July 1994. Microsoft has thus had a solid two-decade head-start, keeping its employee numbers well out of Amazon’s reach. Now the tables have turned.

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment