Aggregate, year-over-year employee growth at 19 sporting goods companies rose 9.7 percent in 2021 as average sales per employee (SPE) at these firms increased 18.4 percent to €390,000. These calculations were made after SGI Europe scoured annual reports for year-end employee counts, which often were detailed to include full-time employees, distribution center staff and retail workers in company stores. The annual sales figures in euros were taken from our inaugural 2021 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. Apart from Nike, VF Corp. and Deckers Brands, all figures are for the year ended Dec. 31, 2021. Allbirds was excluded from the listing since its 2020 employee total was unavailable.
To offer some context on the SPE metric, we calculated it for some of the largest public companies, ranging from Apple to Amazon. The iPhone parent and seller of Macs, iPads and services had the highest SPE at €2,009,618 derived from nearly €309.5 billion in annual revenues and 154,000 full-time equivalent employees. Apple rival Microsoft generated SPE of €785,649 in 2021 as nearly €142.2 billion in revenues was backed by 181,000 full-time employees. At U.S. automaker Ford, the SPE varies slightly, depending on whether the Detroit company’s Ford Credit unit is included. SPE without the lending arm was €583,731, €630,298 with it. Cookie maker and Oreo parent Mondelez International had an SPE of €51,167 in 2021 based on 79,000 employees and more than €4.04 billion in sales. Amazon generated more than €326.6 billion in revenues last year, but the company’s SPE came in at €203,116 since it reported having a total of 1,608,000 full- and part-time employees. Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, generated an SPE of €549,782 in 2021 from more than €79.4 billion in revenues and 144,300 employees. And given last year was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we decided to check the SPE of one more company – vaccine maker Moderna. The company’s SPE increased 10.7 percent year-over-year in U.S. dollars to the equivalent of €578,727 on more than €15.6 billion in revenues and 2,700 full-time employees, up from 1,300 staffers in 2020 when Moderna’s annual revenues were a meager €679.3 million.
Among key findings:
- Eleven firms had a double-digit percentage increase in the number of employees in 2021. Callaway and Rocky Brands’ figures were disproportionately high due to the acquisitions of Topgolf and Honeywell Industries’ lifestyle footwear business, respectively. Rocky recently announced plans to lower its non-manufacturing headcount by 13 percent, which will result in annualized savings of $3 to $4 million.
- Three companies – Adidas, Nike and VF Corp. – reduced their year-over headcount in 2021, with The North Face and Vans parent making the biggest reduction. Skechers’ headcount was flat year-over-year.
- The 19 entrants in our listing had an average employee count of 16,052 in 2021 versus 14,638 in 2020. Nike and Adidas combined employed more than 44 percent of all employees from the list.
- Aggregate revenues for the 19 firms rose 30 percent in 2021 to nearly €119.1 million from €91.7 million as Sales Per Employee (SPE) increased 18.4 percent to €390,000 from €330,000.
- GoPro and Yeti had the highest SPE in 2021, with more than €1.2 million each. Callaway and Rocky Brands had the lowest SPE. Nine entrants had a higher SPE than the group average of €428,000.
- Nike had 16.2 percent more employees than Adidas and 51 percent higher annual revenues in 2021.
Due to currency impact, a similar chart published in U.S. dollars in Sporting Goods Intelligence USA last week has slight variations from this version.
