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2012-03-20 05:35:19
By Ruth Alexander BBC News
The National Health Service (NHS) in England is at the centre of a big
political row about its reform. It's often said to be the third biggest
employer in the world, after the Chinese army and Indian Railways. But is that
really true?
It's an incredible claim, given how much smaller the UK is than China or India.
And indeed, it is not true.
Sizing up the world's biggest employers, the NHS is revealed to be the fifth
largest employer, with 1.7 million workers across England, Wales, Scotland and
Northern Ireland.
McDonald's makes it into fourth position in our list, with 1.9 million
employees. However, 80% of the restaurants are franchises so, strictly
speaking, 1.5 million of these people are employed by other companies, although
they all wear the uniform.
Third is the US supermarket chain Walmart, which employs 2.1 million staff -
including almost 200,000 who work for the Asda supermarket chain in the UK.
Second place goes to the Chinese military - the People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- with forces numbering 2.3 million.
And the top spot is taken by the US Department of Defense with a cool 3.2
million-strong workforce. Why is it so big - and so much bigger than the
second-placed Chinese military?
In truth, making these comparisons is fraught with difficulties.
The US Defense Department, with its headquarters at the vast Pentagon building
in Virginia, is keen to boast that it's one of the world's largest employers
and includes civilian support staff in its numbers.
Pentagon, Arlington The Pentagon is said to be the largest office building in
the world
Getting a comparable figure for the Chinese military is near impossible.
The figure of 2.3 million which puts it at second place in our list includes
active forces only - not civilian staff, like the US figure.
And that actually makes it the largest active military force in the world,
according to Military Balance, an annual assessment of military capabilities
around the world published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies
in the UK.
If you were to count only active forces within the US Department of Defense, it
would number 1.6 million people and slip to seventh place in our list.
If numbers for its civilian staff were known, it is possible the Chinese could
come much closer to the US, and maybe even overtake them.
But it is not a straightforward exercise even to separate who is civilian and
who is military personnel - the two forces are structured and organised
completely differently.
Graphic showing top 10 employers
"There are a number of organisations within militaries - you have active
forces, reserve forces, civilians, and also those that might be working as
contractors - so it depends really what you're trying to count when you look at
headline numbers," says James Hackett, the editor of Military Balance.
"What we try and do is look at active service personnel, so those in uniform
who are capable of operating on behalf of the state to fulfil the national
security concerns of the militaries.
Continue reading the main story
Start Quote
Surprisingly, [the NHS] also has more workers than Indian Railways
"One reason that the PLA is large compared to other militaries stems from its
composition as a mainly conscript-based force. Now other militaries in the West
and across the world have moved to volunteer corps."
The NHS might be lower in the global pecking order than people think but it is
still big.
It's bigger - just - than the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation,
which has around 1.6 million employees and operates in 49 countries.
It's also bigger than the State Grid Corporation of China, which ranks seventh
in our list with 1.5 million staff.
Surprisingly, it also has more workers than Indian Railways, which is popularly
thought to be in the top three of the world's biggest employers, but actually
languishes in eighth place.
"Languishing" with an admittedly whopping 1.4 million-strong workforce - and
with plans to recruit an extra 100,000 staff this year.
And it's still one place ahead of the Indian Armed Forces, which has 1.3
million people in its active forces.
Indian Army Most of India's armed forces are in the army
The reason China's railway operation does not make the top 10 list is because
it's split into various separate entities.
But Chinese operations do dominate the top 10 list.
Number 10 on the list - behind the Indian Armed Forces - is Hon Hai Precision
Industry, better known by its trading name, Foxconn.
This Taiwanese electronics producer, which has 1.2 million employees, makes
well-known products like the Apple iPad in its vast factories in China, where
hundreds of thousands of people work.
It became notorious in 2010 when news spread that 10 of its workers had
committed suicide.
Although these deaths were tragic, an understanding of how massive an employer
the company is makes you realise that this isn't the shockingly high number it
seemed.
Suicide rates in China have been put at 15 per 100,000 people per year. The
controversial Foxconn factory employed around 400,000 people.
Ten suicides per 400,000 people isn't unusually high. It's unusually low for
China.