Largest European companies based on number of employees 2020

The German car manufacturer Volkswagen employed over 671 thousand people worldwide in 2020, the most of any European company. The next largest European company in terms of people employed was the British foodservice company, Compass Group which employed over 596 thousand people, followed by Deutsche Post, which had 504 thousand employees.

Oil giants lead in terms of revenue

Although Volkswagen had the highest number of employees worldwide, it was only the third-largest European company in terms of revenue. The two largest European Companies by revenue were Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, which had a revenue of 396.5 billion US dollars and 303.74 billion US dollars respectively.

Walmart tops worldwide rankings

Although it was the largest European employer, Volkswagen’s 644 thousand-strong workforce is dwarfed by the 2.2 million people that are employed by the American retail giant, Walmart. As well as having the largest number of employees worldwide, Walmart also boasted the largest revenue of any company, amounting to over 523 billion US dollars in 2019.