PE-backed firms provide 6m US jobs

Private equity-backed companies have provided more than six million jobs in the US, according to analysis by the Private Equity Council.

The state of California leads the list with 1,205 companies representing 439,000 employees. Texas followed with 960 companies representing 553,000 employees and New York was third with 568,000 employees from 661 PE-backed companies.

Even smaller states benefit from private equity-backed companies.

The District of Columbia is home to 29 private equity-backed companies that employ 4,500 workers. In Oklahoma, 96 companies employ 25,000 workers; and Wyoming, with a population of 540,000, is home to ten small private equity-backed companies that employ 180 people.

PEC’s report is based on employment reports from 3,650 of the 9,473 private equity-backed companies headquartered in the US. PEC estimates that the actual number of employees at all US private equity-backed companies is 10.9 million, when including companies that did not report employment data.

“What is especially striking about the report, going beyond the numbers, is the diversity of private equity sponsors. There literally are hundreds of private equity firms in the US-small, mid-sized, and large-that make investments in an equally diverse range of companies,” said PEC Chairman Mark Tresnowski in a statement.

In conjunction with the report, PEC launched Private Equity: State by State, an interactive map that allows visitors to view state-specific data about the private equity industry. The data includes information on private equity employment, investment and state-based private equity firms and companies.