Amazon Becomes Biggest Company In The U.S., Dwarfing Auto Industry
(WWJ) Did you think Amazon was already the big fish in the pond? Now it's the whale as the massive e-commerce retailer now has stock trading at $1,000 a share.
Only four other companies in the United States share that distinction.
Can't wrap your mind around it? Think about it this way: WWJ business editor Murray Feldman says if you take Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler and General Motors and throw in Michigan headquartered Kellogg's and Dow Chemical then you have a company that's only half as big as Amazon is right now.
But what's good for Wall Street is not often good for the American worker. Feldman says Amazon's strictly online format efficiency means they don't need as many people to run their massive operations, and they're clearly making it more difficult for brick and mortar retailers across the country to survive.
It brings in $400,000 in revenue per employee. That's three times as much as Macy's employees deliver and four times the revenue that employees bring in at JC Penney.
Amazon has 341,000 employees, compared to 240,000 workers at the Big Three, per the Center for Automotive Research.
Amazon is growing at a time others are shrinking -- and investors are parking their money there.
"They're betting that things are going to get even better for this company," Feldman said.