Two-class structure of Forbes Global 2000 firms sales per employee similar to countries income distributions including some COVID-19 pandemic effects

Abstract

Sales per capita (per number of employees) of the two thousand Forbes Magazine top publicly-traded companies (G-2000) for years 2015, 2020 and 2021 are statistically analyzed. Employing an econophysical model, the sales distributions per capita for the three years exhibit a two-class structure: a Pareto power law in the higher part and exponential in the lower part resembling a Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution. This distribution is consistent with income distributions around the world as if a fraction of a firms' wealth goes to its employees in the form of wages and salaries. We highlight some changes in sales between 2020 and 2021 on selected industries that had the biggest negative and positive impacts partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.