# Sector employment macro thread

Informational only - not investment advice.

BLS payroll employment indicators for manufacturing, construction, retail trade, financial activities, and government.

As of: 2026-05-01
Related topic page: /skills/sector-employment.html

This page is a data-driven assembly of existing grepcent indicators, SIC crosswalks, SEC company financials, and sanitized SEC MD&A text. The mapped sectors are grepcent descriptive editorial mappings, not forecasts, recommendations, or investment advice. Company inclusion is mechanical - largest by revenue in the mapped SIC sectors - and is not a recommendation, endorsement, or an assessment of any company's exposure to this theme.

Sector mapping is coarse (SIC level) and does not imply a company's business is driven by this theme; keyword matches are literal and may be incidental - read the linked filing for context.

## Macro Side

| Indicator | Latest reading | Units | As of | Source |
| --- | ---: | --- | --- | --- |
| [MANEMP](/indicator/MANEMP/) - All Employees, Manufacturing | 12605 | Thousands of Persons | 2026-05-01 | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP |
| [USCONS](/indicator/USCONS/) - All Employees, Construction | 8337 | Thousands of Persons | 2026-05-01 | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USCONS |
| [USTRADE](/indicator/USTRADE/) - All Employees, Retail Trade | 15457.9 | Thousands of Persons | 2026-05-01 | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USTRADE |
| [USFIRE](/indicator/USFIRE/) - All Employees, Financial Activities | 9104 | Thousands of Persons | 2026-05-01 | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USFIRE |
| [USGOVT](/indicator/USGOVT/) - All Employees, Government | 23387 | Thousands of Persons | 2026-05-01 | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT |

## Mapped SIC Sectors

Mapped from the existing topic crosswalk, refined where needed to SIC major-group scope for company selection.

- [Construction](/division/C/): SIC division C
- [Manufacturing](/division/D/): SIC division D
- [Retail Trade](/division/G/): SIC division G
- [Finance, Insurance, And Real Estate](/division/H/): SIC division H
- [Services](/division/I/): SIC division I

## Largest Companies in Mapped Sectors (by revenue)

Companies are selected from the mapped SIC sectors and sorted by latest reported annual revenue (from SEC companyfacts). Missing metrics are left blank. MD&A signals are keyword matches against the sanitized latest 10-K MD&A text. Keywords scanned: employment levels, workforce reductions, headcount reductions, labor costs, staffing shortages.

| Company | Revenue | FY | Net margin | Operating margin | Revenue growth | MD&A mentions | Verbatim MD&A excerpt |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| [AMZN](/company/AMZN/) - AMAZON COM INC | 716,924,000,000 | 2025 | 10.83% | 11.16% | 12.38% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [WMT](/company/WMT/) - Walmart Inc. | 713,163,000,000 | 2026 | 3.07% | 4.18% | 4.73% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [UNH](/company/UNH/) - UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC | 447,567,000,000 | 2025 | 2.69% | 4.24% | 11.81% | workforce reductions | No short unambiguous sentence excerpt emitted; see /company/UNH/. |
| [AAPL](/company/AAPL/) - Apple Inc. | 416,161,000,000 | 2025 | 26.92% | 31.97% | 6.43% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [GOOGL](/company/GOOGL/) - Alphabet Inc. | 402,836,000,000 | 2025 | 32.81% | 32.03% | 15.09% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [CVS](/company/CVS/) - CVS HEALTH Corp | 402,067,000,000 | 2025 | 0.44% | 1.16% | 7.85% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [BRK-B](/company/BRK-B/) - BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC | 371,444,000,000 | 2025 | 18.03% |  | 0.00% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [XOM](/company/XOM/) - EXXON MOBIL CORP | 332,238,000,000 | 2025 | 8.68% |  | -4.96% | workforce reductions | "Strategic changes implemented over the past several years enabled the Corporation to capture $15.1 billion of structural cost savings(1) versus 2019, including $3 billion of savings during 2025, through increased operational efficiencies, workforce reductions, divestment-related reductions, and other cost-saving measures." (verbatim sentence from XOM latest 10-K MD&A, filed 2026-02-18; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000003408826000045/xom-20251231.htm) |
| [MSFT](/company/MSFT/) - MICROSOFT CORP | 281,724,000,000 | 2025 | 36.15% | 45.62% | 14.93% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [COST](/company/COST/) - COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP /NEW | 275,235,000,000 | 2025 | 2.94% | 3.77% | 8.17% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [CI](/company/CI/) - Cigna Group | 274,900,000,000 | 2025 | 2.17% | 3.35% | 11.24% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [NVDA](/company/NVDA/) - NVIDIA CORP | 215,938,000,000 | 2026 | 55.60% | 60.38% | 65.47% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [META](/company/META/) - Meta Platforms, Inc. | 200,966,000,000 | 2025 | 30.08% | 41.44% | 22.17% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |
| [ELV](/company/ELV/) - Elevance Health, Inc. | 199,125,000,000 | 2025 | 2.84% | 3.62% | 12.49% | labor costs | "There are many drivers of medical cost trends that can cause variance from our estimates, such as changes in the level and mix of services utilized, regulatory changes, aging of the population, health status and other demographic characteristics of our members, epidemics, pandemics, advances in medical technology, new high-cost prescription drugs, new indications of existing prescription drugs, provider contracting inflation, labor costs and healthcare fraud, waste and abuse." (verbatim sentence from ELV latest 10-K MD&A, filed 2026-02-06; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1156039/000115603926000013/elv-20251231.htm) |
| [CNC](/company/CNC/) - CENTENE CORP | 194,777,000,000 | 2025 | -3.43% | -3.91% | 19.44% |  | No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A. |