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- These 10 companies ranked the highest across metrics of pay, hiring, promotions, culture, and parity.
- Coca-Cola ranked first, followed by J.M. Smucker and W.W. Grainger.
- The index tracked the performance of 396 of the US's largest employers between 2018 and 2022.
Coca-Cola is the top company employer of choice based on factors such as hiring and pay.
The beverage company ranked first on this year's American Opportunity Index, a ranking from the Schultz Family Foundation, The Burning Glass Institute, and Harvard Business School. which measures the ability of companies to help employees achieve economic mobility and positive career outcomes.
The index tracks 396 of the US's largest employers using labor market data analyzing company performance between 2018 and 2022. The index also looks at pay data and individual resumes to determine ratings for hiring, pay, promotion, culture, and parity — or racial and gender equality.
Coca-Cola had the highest score for hiring, pay, and culture. The index found Coca-Cola uses clear targets to drive corporate priorities, such as a goal to be 50% led by women globally by 2030. The company also ensures internal opportunities are visible across the employee network, per the findings, and connects employees to one another.
The hiring ranking looked at the percentage of people who started jobs at the company with under three years of prior experience, as well as the percentage of people without a bachelor's degree who started a job. The pay metric analyzed both wages and the degree of wage growth, while promotion keyed in on the likelihood of workers being promoted and landing higher-paying roles when moving to other employers.
J.M. Smucker ranked second overall in the index, with top scores with pay, promotion, and culture. Though low for hiring and gender parity, the company of 6,700 employees had top marks for wage growth, racial parity, and retention.
W.W. Grainger, a business-to-business distributor, took the third spot with the highest scores for pay and culture and average to above average marks on the other three variables.
Many of the other companies in the top 10 are banks, software and technology companies, and financial services. These included PNC Financial Services, ServiceNow, and Meta Platforms. Nearly all of the top 10 ranked in the top 100 overall for pay, though only three were in the top 100 for hiring.
Companies such as Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway, Fox, and Prudential Financial did not rank in the top 100 for any metrics on the list.