Analysis: Double-digit increase in sales per employee in 2022

• Sales per employee in 2022 – the key numbers
• Sales per employee figures of major international companies in other sectors
• The SGI Europe sales per employee 2022 Scorecard
• How we got these numbers

Sales per employee in 2022 – the key numbers

When it comes to the number of employees in the sporting goods industry and which sporting goods company employs the most people, there are some key points from the numbers for 2022.

• While the aggregate number of employees inched up by 1.2 percent in 2022 to more than 455,000, eight companies had lower year-over-year employee counts, led by Hanesbrands, Under Armour, and Rocky Brands.
• On Holdings, Allbirds, and Skechers had the largest percentage increases in number of employees year-over-year.
• Collectively, Nike and Adidas accounted for more than 30 percent of all employees in the group.

Moving on to look at sales per employee in the sporting goods industry for 2022:

• Only two companies on our list suffered a year-over-year sales decline: Compass Diversified (-86%) and Under Amour (-1%).
• Seven companies had annual revenue increases larger than the group’s average gain of 27 percent, led by On Holdings (82%), Lululemon (46%), Crocs (46%), and Topgolf Callaway (44%).
• Four firms – Allbirds, Compass Diversified, GoPro, and Skechers – had lower year-over-year sales per employee in 2022.
• Fenix Outdoor’s and Nike’s sales per employee were essentially flat.
• A dozen firms recorded double-digit increases in year-over-year sales per employee.
• The companies showing the biggest percentage improvement in sales per employee year-over-year were: Topgolf Callaway, Fox Factory, Rocky Brands, Crocs, and Puma.

Sales per employee figures of major international companies in other sectors 

To offer a further comparison of sales per employee in the sporting goods industry with other sectors, we also calculated 2022 sales per employee figures for several large, well-known, and publicly traded Europe-based companies.

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi scored a sales per employee of €472,495 last year based on 91,000 total employees and nearly €43 billion in total revenues. Food maker Mondolez Intl. generated annual sales per employee of €329,469 from its total revenues of more than €29.9 billion and a headcount of 91,000. SAP had sales per employee of €287,399 in 2022 based on 107,415 employees and total revenues of nearly €30.9 billion. Dutch oil firm Shell produced annual sales per employee of €748,780 last year from more than €69.6 billion in revenues and 93,000 employees worldwide.

Headcount reductions in technology sector last year reversed the sales-per-employee trend

The technology sector, aiming to become both “leaner” and “flatter” in 2022, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, laid off more than 300,000 staffers throughout the year. These job cuts reversed a four-year industry trend of lower sales per employee. During that time, Amazon’s sales per employee reportedly declined by 6.9 percent in US dollars, Twitter’s fell by approximately 18 percent, and Meta’s slipped by 14 percent as it more than doubled its headcount.

The SGI Europe sales per employee 2022 Scorecard

To enlarge the image, click on the icon in the top right corner and select “view full screen.”

How we got these numbers

SGI Europe reviewed more than two dozen annual reports for details on year-end employee counts, which were often detailed to include full-time staffers, part-time retail workers and distribution center employees. The annual sales figures in euros were taken from the 2022 Industry Scorecard. With this data, we calculated year-over-year employee growth and the SPE metric by dividing the total sales figure by the reported number of employees at the end of the 12-month period.

Aside from Nike, Under Armour, VF Corp. and Deckers Brands, all figures are for the year ended Dec. 31, 2022. The sales figure for Compass Diversified represents the total for its 5.11, BOA, Marucci Sports, PrimaLoft and Velocity Outdoor segments. The company did not own PrimaLoft in 2021, so its revenues are not included in the 2021 total.