Yes, there are some obvious names missing from the Top 50 list of the area largest private employers.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Martin's Food Markets, Food Lion, CVS, Bostwick Laboratories Inc. and Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. are not on this year's list.
These companies either didn't provide full-time-equivalent, or FTE, numbers or, in some cases, any numbers at all.
Food Lion, which ranked No. 16 on last year's Top 50 list, said it has 3,300 full- and part-time employees at its area stores and distribution center in Prince George County. The chain said it switched computer systems for its human resource management this year and is no longer able to provide FTEs.
Wal-Mart did not provide full-time equivalent numbers for the second straight year, after being on the list for more than a decade.
The world's largest retailer did give total employment.
It estimated that it has roughly 5,750 workers at its 12 stores and four Sam's Clubs in central Virginia and its distribution center in Dinwiddie County. The chain said that about 60 percent of its employees in its supercenters work full time.
Last year, Wal-Mart said it had 8,600 full- and part-time employees in the Richmond region. In 2009, the chain said it had the full-time equivalent of 6,238 workers.
A spokesman was not sure at how the numbers were arrived at in the past two years.
Total head count of workers is not a true comparison to full-time-equivalent employees, experts say.
Having FTE employment figures — not the total head count — provides a better gauge because it includes full-time workers and a proportion of part-time employees. For example, two part-timers who generally work 20 hours a week would be considered one full-time equivalent.
The Top 50 list is based on the number of full-time-equivalent employees as of Jan. 1. That has been the newspaper's standard since the special report began 19 years ago.
Martin's Food Markets, like Wal-Mart, provided total workforce instead of FTE.
The chain, a division of Dutch supermarket conglomerate Royal Ahold NV, reports that it has 3,626 full- and part-time workers in the Richmond area as of Jan. 1.
Martin's Food Markets was expected to be on the Top 50 list this year after buying Ukrop's Super Markets Inc.'s 25 area stores last year and expanding hours of operation. The company said a year ago it had hired about 500 employees to add to the workforce it inherited from Ukrop's.
Ukrop's was 10th on last year's list with 3,331 FTEs as of Jan. 1, 2010.
FedEx Corp. has about 900 workers in the Richmond region at its two FedEx Ground locations, two FedEx Express locations, one FedEx Freight operation and nine FedEx Office Print & Ship Centers (formerly Kinko's). The company couldn't provide FTEs in the time requested.
Drugstore retailer CVS did not respond to email and telephone requests for information. Last year, it said its total local workforce was 1,070.
Bostwick Laboratories, the Henrico County-based provider of medical laboratory services, said it would not provide numbers this year and did not say why.
Bostwick, which first landed on the Top 50 list in 2009, had 556 FTEs in 2010.
Smurfit-Stone said it would not provide numbers this year because the company is in the midst of being sold to RockTenn Co. Smurfit came in at No. 26 on the 2010 list.
Sears Holdings Inc., the Illinois-based retailer that owns Sears and Kmart stores, does not participate in local employment surveys.
Another large employer not on the list is Kings Dominion. The theme park operator doesn't qualify because the bulk of its workforce is seasonal. It has 3,500 seasonal workers but only 117 full-time year-round employees.
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