The 20 Best Companies For Millennials

Impact

Given the very high unemployment rate of 13.1% for millennials, which has increased at a much sharper rate than for the overall population (an increase from 11.5 percent% in December, 2012 and 10.9 percent% in November, 2012), we wanted to identify which companies are doing the most to help alleviate unemployment for millennials, and other demographics. We’ve used a simple criterion to identify the companies that are doing the most to help the U.S. economy in 2013: hiring for permanent jobs in the U.S. We believe that this is an appropriate benchmark because companies that emphasize job growth contribute to the well being of the overall economy. Forbes ranked its 100 best small publicly traded companies in America, and here are the top ten in terms of net hiring over the past three fiscal years:

Company

Sales ($Millions)

Industry

Net Hires

Total Employment

Syntel

588

IT

6,318

18,000

BJ'S Restaurants

559

Casual Dining

3,490

12,100

FactSet Research Systems

727

Financial Research

3,317

5,251

Rackspace Hosting

892

Cloud Computing

1,691

3,712

Capella Education

437

Online Education

1,670

2,968

Morningstar

604

Investment Services

1,580

3,300

Grand Canyon Education

404

Online Education

1,479

2,600

True Religion

396

Apparel

1,325

1,663

Masimo

429

Medical Equipment

1,049

2,397

HMS Holdings

339

Health Care

896

1,656

These companies reflect a cross-section of America's service economy, and Forbes notes, "the majority of each company's increase came from good old fashioned organic growth, rather than through acquisitions." It is not surprising that there would be health care and IT companies on this list, but growth in casual dining and apparel are a bit surprising.

For larger companies, we looked at Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2013, and then ranked them by job growth over the past year:

Company

Sales ($Millions)

Industry

Net  Hires

Employees

Capital One

16,279

Financial Services

8,019

36,394

Google

37,905

IT

5,543

34,311

Nordstrom, Inc.

10,877

Retail

4,566

58,140

Intel Corp.

54,000

IT

3,968

48,350

PricewaterhouseCoopers

29,200

Business Services

3,638

34,237

Whole Foods Market

10,100

Groceries

3,285

64,127

Chesapeake Energy

11,635

Energy

2,740

13,242

Ernst & Young LLP

22,900

Business Services

2,740

27,041

Darden Restaurants

7,500

Restaurants

2,506

177,655

Qualcomm

15,693

Telecom

2,330

15,693

This group of companies again represent a cross-section of the U.S. service economy, and are included in Fortune’s ranking based on their quality of work life, and include such perks as low-cost health insurance (Darden's), $5,000/year in tuition reimbursement (Capital One), eight weeks of paid sabbatical every seven years (Intel), or being sent abroad to help improve schools and build new playgrounds (PricewaterhouseCoopers).

It is important for millennials to monitor job growth not only by company, but also by industry.  Pay attention to the companies that are making it a priority to grow their business through new hires. These companies know that they will stimulate the economy by keeping more people employed who will in turn put more money into the economy. Also, pay attention to which industries are high growth industries. Those are the industries that you can target for internships while you are in school so that you can be ready and prepared for a full-time job when you graduate.

Aneil and Karen Mishra are business school professors and authors of Trust is Everything (2008) and Becoming a Trustworthy Leader (2012)