Markets
Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023
Ranking America’s Best Places to Work
What better way to know more about a company’s work culture than to hear from those who’ve already been on the inside?
In the above graphic, we dissect how America’s top employers have changed over the last five years based on employee reviews on Glassdoor, a website that allows current and former employees to anonymously review their employers on things like company culture, pay, benefits, diversity, and more.
Tech Fares Best
Despite widescale layoffs in 2022, technology companies made up more than 40% of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list in 2023. Gainsight, a customer success software company founded in 2009, entered the top 15 ranking for the first time in five years and took the number one spot as the year’s best employer.
The dominance of technology companies in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list is nothing new, though. Companies like HubSpot and NVIDIA are staples on the list, with consistent praise from their employees when it comes to pay, benefits, leadership, and career growth.
Rank | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Bain & Company | HubSpot | Bain & Company | NVIDIA | Gainsight |
#2 | Zoom Video Communications | Bain & Company | NVIDIA | HubSpot | Box |
#3 | In-N-Out Burger | DocuSign | In-N-Out Burger | Bain & Company | Bain & Company |
#4 | Procore Technologies | In-N-Out Burger | HubSpot | eXp Realty | McKinsey & Company |
#5 | Boston Consulting Group | Sammons Financial Group Companies | McKinsey & Company | Box | NVIDIA |
While tech tends to be popular among employees, the industry isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to good employee reviews.
Take Bain & Company, a management consulting firm with over 10,000 employees, that’s been consistently ranking in the top three over the last five years. Or look at fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger, whose employees consistently rave about good pay and schedule flexibility in anonymous Glassdoor reviews, making the company one of America’s top 20 employers since 2015.
Analyzing Ranking by Company
Diving into the ranking by company can also give us a good understanding of how some of the giants compare to others in the field.
Looking at the above visual, you might notice that two regular winners, Apple and Meta, did not make the top 100 this year. Salesforce’s ranking also fell below the top 50 for the first time since 2015, coming in at #75. While tech fared relatively well in 2023, these companies tumbled down and off the list, making way for smaller tech companies like Gainsight, Box, and MathWorks.
As the global economy faces uncertainty in 2023, it’ll be interesting to observe how these companies fare in terms of employee satisfaction. Against the backdrop of layoffs and slower economic growth, how leadership navigates hard conversations and steps up for their employees may be very telling, potentially resulting in a completely different makeup of the list in 2024.
Markets
The 50 Best One-Year Returns on the S&P 500 (1980-2022)
The highest one-year return among the top S&P 500 stocks from 1980 to 2022 was a staggering 2,620%. Which stocks top the ranks?
The Top S&P 500 Stocks by Annual Returns
The average annual return of the S&P 500 was 10% from 1980-2022, excluding dividends. Of course, there are some companies that deliver much higher returns in any given year.
In this graphic using data from S&P Dow Jones Indices, we explore the top S&P 500 stocks with the best single year returns over the last four decades.
Ranking the Top S&P 500 Stocks
In order to find the top gainers, S&P took the top 10 best-performing stocks each year and then narrowed that list down to the top 50 overall. They ranked the top S&P 500 stocks by price returns, meaning that no dividends or stock distributions were included.
The best gains were clustered in a few select years, including the 1999 dot-com boom, the 2003 stock market rally, and the 2009 recovery from the Global Financial Crisis. None of the biggest gains happened in 2021 or 2022.
Rank | Company | Sector | Return | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Qualcomm | Information Technology | 2620% | 1999 |
2 | Tesla | Consumer Discretionary | 743% | 2020 |
3 | DSC Communications | Communication Services | 468% | 1992 |
4 | Coleco Industries | Consumer Discretionary | 435% | 1982 |
5 | Avaya | Information Technology | 428% | 2003 |
6 | Chrysler | Consumer Discretionary | 426% | 1982 |
7 | XL Capital (Axa XL) | Financials | 395% | 2009 |
8 | Tenet Healthcare | Healthcare | 369% | 2009 |
9 | Dynegy | Utilities | 361% | 2000 |
10 | Advanced Micro Devices | Information Technology | 348% | 2009 |
11 | Sprint | Communication Services | 343% | 1999 |
12 | Ford | Consumer Discretionary | 337% | 2009 |
13 | NEXTEL Communications | Communication Services | 336% | 1999 |
14 | LSI Logic | Information Technology | 319% | 1999 |
15 | NVIDIA | Information Technology | 308% | 2001 |
16 | Nortel Networks | Communication Services | 304% | 1999 |
17 | Etsy | Consumer Discretionary | 302% | 2020 |
18 | Genworth Financial | Financials | 301% | 2009 |
19 | Micron Technology | Information Technology | 300% | 2009 |
20 | NetFlix | Communication Services | 298% | 2013 |
21 | Oracle | Information Technology | 290% | 1999 |
22 | Western Digital | Information Technology | 286% | 2009 |
23 | Network Appliance (NetApp) | Information Technology | 270% | 1999 |
24 | Data General | Information Technology | 267% | 1991 |
25 | Yahoo | Communication Services | 265% | 1999 |
26 | Williams Companies | Energy | 264% | 2003 |
27 | Novell | Information Technology | 264% | 1991 |
28 | Dynegy | Utilities | 263% | 2003 |
29 | Sun Microsystems | Information Technology | 262% | 1999 |
30 | PMC-Sierra | Information Technology | 262% | 2003 |
31 | Advanced Micro Devices | Information Technology | 259% | 1991 |
32 | Dell | Information Technology | 248% | 1998 |
33 | Global Marine | Energy | 247% | 1980 |
34 | Micron Technology | Information Technology | 243% | 2013 |
35 | Best Buy | Consumer Discretionary | 237% | 2013 |
36 | Reebok | Consumer Discretionary | 234% | 2000 |
37 | Freeport-McMoRan | Materials | 229% | 2009 |
38 | Biomet (Zimmer Biomet) | Healthcare | 226% | 1991 |
39 | NVIDIA | Information Technology | 224% | 2016 |
40 | Gap | Consumer Discretionary | 223% | 1991 |
41 | NetFlix | Communication Services | 219% | 2010 |
42 | Fleetwood Enterprises (Fleetwood RV) | Consumer Discretionary | 217% | 1982 |
43 | National Semiconductor | Information Technology | 217% | 1999 |
44 | Dell | Information Technology | 216% | 1997 |
45 | Tandy Corp (RadioShack) | Information Technology | 216% | 1980 |
46 | Novell | Information Technology | 215% | 2003 |
47 | Corning | Information Technology | 215% | 2003 |
48 | CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) | Real Estate | 214% | 2009 |
49 | AES Corp | Utilities | 213% | 2003 |
50 | Expedia | Consumer Discretionary | 212% | 2009 |
Qualcomm was by far the top-performer in any one calendar year window. The company had key patents for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which enabled fast wireless internet access and became the basis for 3G networks.
Its stock took off in 1999 as it shed less profitable business lines, resolved a patent dispute with competitor Ericsson, and joined the S&P 500 Index. At the time, CNN reported that one lucky investor who heard about Qualcomm from an investment-banker-turned-rabbi earned $17 million—roughly $30 million in today’s dollars.
The most recent stocks to make the rankings were both from 2020: well-known Tesla (#2) and lesser-known online marketplace Etsy (#17), which saw sales from independent creators surge during the early COVID-19 pandemic. The dollar value of items sold on Etsy more than doubled from $5.3 billion in 2019 to $10.3 billion in 2020, with mask sales accounting for 7% of the total.
Biggest Gainers in Each Sector
While information technology stocks made up nearly half of the list, there is representation from nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors. No companies from the Industrials or Consumer Staples sectors made it into the ranks of the top S&P 500 stocks by annual returns.
Below, we show the stock with the best annual return for each sector.
Tesla was the top-performing Consumer Discretionary stock on the list. After meeting the requirement of four consecutive quarters of positive earnings, it joined the S&P 500 Index on December 21, 2020. The company’s performance was boosted by the announcement that it would be included in the S&P 500, along with strong performance in China, and general EV buzz as environmental regulations tightened worldwide.
In the realm of Communication Services, DSC Communications saw a sizable return in 1992. The telecommunications equipment company had contracts with major companies such as Bell and Motorola. Alcatel-Lucent (then Alcatel), a French producer of mobile phones, purchased DSC Communications in 1998.
Serial Success Stories
It’s impressive to make the list of the top S&P 500 stocks by calendar returns once, but there are seven companies that have done it twice.
Some stocks saw their repeated outperformance close together, with Dell making the ranks back-to-back in 1997 and 1998.
On the other hand, a select few have more staying power. Computing giant NVIDIA topped the charts in 2001 and triumphed again 15 years later in 2016. And this year might be another win, as the company has recently reached a $1 trillion market capitalization and has the highest year-to-date return in the S&P 500 as of July 6, 2023.
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