Making more with less.

As some big employers shrink their work force, jobs continue to grow.

BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA's fifth annual ranking of the state's largest employers has a lot of big companies trying to get a little smaller. IBM, for instance, has cut more than 1,000 jobs in North Carolina, and Duke Power

"I hear over and over again that the Fortune 500 haven't created any jobs since 1979 and that small employers are creating the new jobs," First Union economist Mark Vitner says. "That's a gross exaggeration. The economy is constantly evolving." Sure, big companies shrink and expand, but small companies sometimes become big ones - and sometimes go broke.

North Carolina employment for the companies on this year's list is 579,450, slightly higher than last year. First Union's employment, for instance, increased almost 1,400 last year to 11,360. And IBM, which reported 14,000 workers, is moving about as many jobs here as it has cut.

Robert Cottrell, director of labor-market information for the Employment Security Commission, calculates that companies employing more than 2,000 in North Carolina grew from 110 in 1992 to 119 in 1994. Their average annual employment rose 8%, to 533,446. "We hear a lot about smaller firms," Cottrell notes, "but there are a significant number of large companies."

At businesses large and small, finding workers has been a challenge. Unemployment in North Carolina dropped below 5% last year. The labor market, of course, is tighter in some regions than others. "If the jobs are in Charlotte and you live in Ahoskie, it doesn't matter," Cottrell says.

Unfortunately, it often seems as if it's the high-paying employers that are shedding workers and the low payers looking for new ones. Says Vitner, "We could be in a depression, and McDonald's would still have a problem finding workers."

"The other side," he adds, "is that low unemployment is pulling in workers from other parts of the country. People are moving into North Carolina, and I don't think that's showing up in employment yet. When we get better Census numbers, I think we'll find that the labor force has grown more rapidly than employment."

To rank the state's top employers, BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA begins with the Employment Security Commission's annual list, which does not include employment figures. We mail questionnaires to 200 companies on the list and follow up with phone calls until we have winnowed the number down to the top 100.

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