A research study published by the World Economic Forum places Indian Railways and Indian Army at 8th and 9th largest employers in the world, respectively. They together employ a whopping 2.7 million people (IR-1.4 m + Army-1.3 m).
The US department of defense is the world’s biggest employer having 3.2 million employees on its roster.
Second is People’s Liberation Army (the Chinese military) with 2.3 million, and in third is the US supermarket giant Walmart with 2.1 million workers though 1,75,000 of Walmart’s staff work for UK supermarket chain, Asda.
McDonald’s is the 4th biggest employer with 1.9 million employees, however, as the majority of its restaurants are franchises, this figure falls to 4,20,000 when they are excluded, the report said.
UK’s National Health Service was ranked at the 5th place, with 1.7 million employees, followed by state-run China National Petroleum Corporation with 1.6 million.
Another Chinese company, the State Grid Corporation of China was ranked 7th with 1.5 million.
Hon Hai Precision Factory (better known as the electronics manufacturer Foxconn) comes in at 10th place with 1.2 million people.