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There is no doubt that the business of selling drinks and food is a prime source of employment around the world. Because the international processing of beverages and food is considered a major manufacturing department, this line of work accounted for 4% of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and has more than 22 million workers happily employed.
Approximately more than 1 million individuals work as wholesale food distributors for any of the big multinational drink and food production firms. Based on statistics for the year 2002, Nestle hires about 25,000 employees worldwide (around the same figures as Unilever does). Other large employers include Kraft (an estimated 109,000), Tyson (an estimated 120,000), PepsiCo (an estimated 142,000), and Sara Lee (an estimated 154,000). The ten most lucrative fast food chains that are mostly owned by Americans hire around 5 million employees, with McDonald’s leading this statistical data with 1.5 million workers. Grocery enterprises like Carrefour, Tesco and Wal-Mart hire 2.25 million employees in more than 30 nations.
With the use of ISIC Code 15, Production of food items and drinks (United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification), employment data has been shown fluctuating over the last few years. Based on the data that was gathered from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), employment in this department has gone up, particularly in their member nations. The number of workers in Canada between the years 2003 and 2005 is at 1.9%, Spain went up to 6.7%, and France increased by 7.3%.
At the other side of the coin, other nations seem to have dramatic losses in terms of the employment status of wholesale food distributors. In the United States, for example, the employment rate in 2005 went down to an estimated 1.64 million compared to the 1.68 million rate that they had two years ago.
