As Labor Market Softens, Index Shows Top Employers Pay and Promote More Than Double Their Peers For Same Jobs

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & PHILADELPHIA & SEATTLE–The Burning Glass Institute, the Schultz Family Foundation and Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work Project today released the 2024 American Opportunity Index, a groundbreaking ranking that reveals which large U.S. companies are doing the best to advance the careers of their employees and grow the middle class in an evolving labor market.

“I have long believed that when you invest in your people, you’re investing in the future of your company. That belief guided my family foundation’s support of the 2024 American Opportunity Index”

In its third year, the latest Index finds that many firms beyond the technology and financial-services industries, including those in the energy and resource-related sectors, are succeeding at providing pathways to opportunity for workers. Overall, companies from more than 30 sectors are represented in the Index’s Top 100 Employers of Choice list.

Topping this year’s ranking are: W.W. Grainger, Inc., Costco Wholesale, Capital One Financial, Meta Platforms, ServiceNow, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MetLife and Bank of America.

The Index finds that a majority of studied companies did not increase hiring of early career and non-college workers in 2023, and 60% of firms on the list decreased promotion opportunities. As economic uncertainties impact the labor market, the Index points the way to firms that are outperforming competitors in creating meaningful opportunities for workers to get hired, be paid well and advance in their careers.

“I have long believed that when you invest in your people, you’re investing in the future of your company. That belief guided my family foundation’s support of the 2024 American Opportunity Index,” said Starbucks chairman emeritus Howard Schultz, co-founder of the Schultz Family Foundation. “It is crucial that business leaders and corporate directors look inward and examine how effectively they are nurturing and developing their people.”

The American Opportunity Index is fundamentally different from every other measure of employer quality: It is not based on corporate-submitted data or worker surveys but on an independent, comprehensive data analysis of the career trajectories of more than 5 million employees at 395 of America’s largest companies. The Index measures how well firms promote, pay, hire and retain their employees based on what really happened to them over a five-year period.

The Index is a valuable tool that equips employers with new data to benchmark their success versus peers and identify areas for improvement. The project is based on the premise that when employers invest in unlocking the full potential of their people—by providing good jobs and ample opportunities for advancement—their businesses do better.

“When workers rise, companies rise with them,” said Matt Sigelman, President of the Burning Glass Institute and one of the architects of the Index. “The 2024 American Opportunity Index offers a critical benchmark for companies to assess how they foster opportunities and drive mobility, providing a data-driven yardstick for identifying the practices that build value in the workforce. By offering good jobs and opportunities for growth, top-ranked employers aren’t just supporting their employers, they’re building a stronger foundation for the future.”

The Index also provides critical new transparency for workers, revealing which companies and industries are providing the best wages, chances for promotions and job opportunities for first-time job seekers and those without college degrees.

Among key findings from this year’s Index:

• Employees at the 100-best firms on the Index’s pay metric earn, on average, 130% more for the same job than those who work for bottom-100 pay firms.
• Those at top-100 firms for the internal promotion metric are 150% more likely to be promoted than their counterparts at bottom-100 firms.
• Top 100 employers in hiring are 180% more likely to hire workers without a college degree, creating greater opportunity for entry level workers.
• Companies in the energy and resource-related sectors—oil and gas, utilities, and metals and materials—had the largest average gains in the Index this year, proving resilience even as more prominent sectors like technology and retail struggled.
• Wages across sectors are growing, but workers in the consumer goods and industrial distribution sectors saw the greatest increases.
• A new measure that assesses how well firms did compared to their own prior-year performance finds that only 80 of 395 firms increased promotion opportunities, while 240 firms had some level of decrease.
• The same measure finds that a plurality of companies–174–decreased their hiring of people who either lack college degrees or meaningful previous work experience.

Joe Fuller, a Professor at Harvard Business School and co-head of its Managing the Future of Work Project, observed, “Our research demonstrates that management practices unlock opportunity for workers. The leading companies in the Index come from a wide array of industries–distribution, retail, banking, technology, consumer products, logistics. Opportunity doesn’t rest in specific industries or locations. It’s a function of companies making choices that advance the interest of their workers and implementing them.”

The American Opportunity Index is a joint project of the Schultz Family Foundation, Burning Glass Institute, and The Harvard Business School Managing the Future of Work Project. The Index is a nonprofit project for the public to help workers make informed decisions about the best places to start a career.

CEO Perspectives

Lumen

“It is an honor to again be recognized as an AOI Employer of Choice. At Lumen, we believe that investing in our employees’ growth and development is fundamental to our success,” said Kate Johnson, CEO of Lumen Technologies. “A strong commitment to employee well-being and professional growth fosters an environment where all employees can thrive – and we’re proud to have accomplished that at Lumen.”

ServiceNow

“Everybody wins when we empower talented people to achieve their full potential. ServiceNow’s investment in talent strengthens our position as part of a community of best-run businesses in the world,” said ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott. “Through empathy, inclusivity, & development, we show our people that ServiceNow is here to serve. This recognition from the American Opportunity Index further inspires our dream big culture to achieve new heights . . . for our customers, our partners, our communities, & our teams.”

W.W. Grainger, Inc.

“The foundation of the Grainger culture is an unwavering belief that every team member deserves the opportunity to have a meaningful and fulfilling career,” said D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, Grainger. “This recognition is a testament to our investment in attracting, developing and retaining the best people so we can continue to achieve our purpose—We Keep the World Working®—for our customers and communities.”

2024 Top 100 Companies

The top 100 companies recognized as 2024 American Opportunity Index Employers of Choice are:

W.W. Grainger, Costco Wholesale, Capital One Financial, Meta Platforms, ServiceNow, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MetLife, Bank of America, KeyCorp, Equinix, Starbucks, Lumen Technologies, Lowe’s, Truist Financial, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial Services Group, Salesforce, Target, Wayfair, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Goldman Sachs Group, Verizon Communications, Adobe, AbbVie, Best Buy, Parker-Hannifin, First American Financial, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Home Depot, Exelon, Skechers U.S.A., Marriott International, Mastercard, Hershey, Southwest Airlines, Pfizer, Amazon, Nike, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Jones Lang LaSalle, CBRE Group, Hartford Financial Services Group, AT&T, CDW, Taylor Morrison Home, Intuit, Dell Technologies, Ecolab, Oracle, Advanced Micro Devices, Progressive, Universal Health Services, Sherwin-Williams, Charter Communications, J.M. Smucker, ConocoPhillips, M&T Bank, Uber Technologies, American Express, Laboratory Corp. of America, Charles Schwab, Nationwide, Gap Inc., DaVita, Keurig Dr Pepper, Ulta Beauty, Delta Air Lines, Northrop Grumman, Kellogg, Equitable Holdings, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Johnson & Johnson, Applied Materials, Chewy, XPO, Citigroup, Tesla, Wells Fargo, Travelers, Motorola Solutions, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, NVR, Mondelez International, VF, New York Life Insurance, Cigna, Foot Locker, Penske Automotive Group, United Rentals, Western & Southern Financial Group, Molson Coors Beverage, Intel, CarMax, Farmers Insurance Exchange and PayPal Holdings.

Explore the full Index at www.AmericanOpportunityIndex.org.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY INDEX

The American Opportunity Index is a groundbreaking ranking of how well companies maximize their internal talent to drive business performance and individual employee growth. Unlike most measures of employer performance, the Index is based on real world outcomes, assessing the progress of millions of workers by tracking the progress of their individual careers. The Index measures hiring and promotion practices, pay, race-and-gender parity, and cultural components such as retention and whether companies hire their leaders internally. This ranking is rooted in the belief that when employers enable the full potential of their people—by providing good jobs and opportunities for advancement—their business does better. In recognizing the companies where workers and firms thrive symbiotically, and showing the areas where each company can continue to improve, we seek to spark a new focus on sustainable talent management across American businesses. The American Opportunity Index is a joint project of the Burning Glass Institute, the Managing the Future of Work Project at Harvard Business School, and the Schultz Family Foundation. Explore the Index and see who’s leading the way at: https://americanopportunityindex.org.

ABOUT BURNING GLASS INSTITUTE

The Burning Glass Institute believes that everyone deserves meaningful work and the chance to move up. A fully independent non-profit, we advance data-driven research and practice on the future of work and on the future of learning. We work with employers, public agencies, educators, and policymakers to develop solutions that build mobility, opportunity, and equity through skills. Through our expertise in mining new datasets for actionable insight, the Burning Glass Institute’s discourse-shaping research draws attention to pressing problems and frames the potential for new approaches. Through project-based engagement and collectives, we put ideas into practice, bringing forward solutions that are high-impact and replicable. For more information visit https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/.

ABOUT THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL MANAGING THE FUTURE OF WORK PROJECT

Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work pursues research that business and policy leaders can put into action to navigate the complex, fast-changing nature of work. The Project’s current research areas focus on the many forces that are redefining the nature of work in the United States as well as in many other advanced and emerging economies: Technology trends like automation and artificial intelligence; Contingent workforces and the gig economy; Workforce demographics and the “care economy”; The middle-skills gap and worker investments; Global talent access and utilization; Spatial tensions between leading urban centers and rural areas. Learn more at: https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/.

ABOUT THE SCHULTZ FAMILY FOUNDATION

The Schultz Family Foundation’s mission is to create greater opportunity, accessible to all. Our work is deeply rooted in the lives and values of our co-founders, Sheri and Howard Schultz, who believe talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. We seek to apply the lessons they have learned over the decades to seed innovations and scale solutions to help young people successfully navigate the transition to adulthood and positively impact the trajectory of their lives. We are investors in unleashing potential and unlocking opportunity, working in partnership with employers, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and governments that share our aspiration of enabling everyone to access the full promise of America. For more information about the Foundation and its work: www.schultzfamilyfoundation.org.