LIST OVERVIEW20 ARKANSAS BUSINESS APRIL 2, 2007

WAL-MART, TYSON ANDthe state and federal govern-ment continue to dominate

Arkansas Business’s annual list ofLargest Arkansas Employers.

The combined work force of those fourentities, roughly 140,000, is more than thecombined work force of the other 31employers on this year’s list.

At the top is state government withmore than 50,000 employees, now led bya new top executive, Gov. Mike Beebe.The state government’s number includesmore than 9,000 employees of theUniversity of Arkansas for MedicalSciences at Little Rock.

Preliminary January 2007 numbersfrom the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticshave the unemployment rate holdingsteady at 5 percent.

A few more people are working inArkansas but not for manufacturers. Theindustry had the biggest change and theonly decrease in the state since January2006, cutting nearly 4 percent of jobs. Thenumbers are seasonally adjusted.

Those figures include the companieswith the biggest cuts on Arkansas

Business’ 2007 list of largest employers.ConAgra Foods of Omaha, Neb., sold

its refrigerated meats division, includingthree facilities in Huntsville, Ozark andJonesboro, to Smithfield Foods ofSmithfield, Va., resulting in a 35 percentdrop in its in-state employment.

International Paper Co. of Memphiscut a third of its Arkansas work force in2006 and will cut what is left in half thissummer when it sells its facilities at Leolaand Gurdon to West Frazier Timber andGeorgia-Pacific, respectively.

AT&T Arkansas, the state operations

for the telecommunications giant based inSan Antonio, holds the title for the biggestupswing in employment, 64 percent,thanks to the influx of Cingular Wireless’former operations.

Another telecommunications compa-ny, Alltel Corp., spun off its wire-line divi-sion in July 2006 and merged it with ValorCommunications Group Inc. to formWindstream Corp. That resulted in almost600 fewer jobs for the Little Rock-basedwireless carrier to report this year.

Windstream is headquartered in LittleRock and has 1,100 workers in Arkansas.

One new company that may show upat the top of next year’s list isCommunity Health Systems Inc. ofFranklin, Tenn., which announced inMarch a $6.8 billion deal to buy outTriad Hospitals Inc. of Plano, Texas. Thecompanies said the deal — which is stillsubject to approval by Triad stockhold-ers, antitrust clearance and other regula-tory approvals — will create the largestpublicly traded hospital company in theUnited States, owning or operating 130hospitals in 28 states with a total bedcount of more than 18,700.

Triad has nine medical centers inArkansas — in El Dorado, Hot Springs,Russellville, Jonesboro, Johnson, Spring-dale and Bentonville. Community Healthalready owns three hospitals in the state:Harris Hospital in Newport, Forrest CityMedical Center and Helena RegionalMedical Center.

Acxiom Corp.’s net Arkansas employ-ment is up since this time last year.However, after being pressed by ArkansasBusiness, the data-mining companyacknowledged it had averaged 65 termi-nations a quarter across the company forthe past fiscal year and had racked up 100or so in its last quarter for the fiscal year,which ended Saturday. ■

BY JAMES GORDONjgordon@abpg.com

Money talks. We write about it.And when we write about that much in just one day, how can you afford not to know everyone else’s business?

$370,650,000,203*

*Totals from 2/19/2007 Daily Report

Get FREE business news delivered daily to your inbox.

Sign up at Arkansasbusiness.com.

Job Training

Industry Jan-06 Jan-07* ChangeTrade, Transportation & Utilities 247,700 250,500 1.1%Government 205,900 209,800 1.9%Manufacturing 201,800 194,200 -3.8%Education & Health Services 149,100 153,200 2.7%Professional & Business Services 113,600 116,000 2.1%Leisure & Hospitality 97,600 98,000 0.4%Construction 56,700 57,300 1.1%Financial Activities 52,100 53,300 2.3%Total 1,194,500 1,204,700 0.8%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally adjusted dated*Preliminary estimates

Employment

Government, Wal-Mart, Tyson Still Top Largest Employer List