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ESOP Association Blog

EO Firms Dramatically Better at Retention

The ESOP Association

For some time now, the data have shown that businesses with employee stock ownership are clearly better than conventionally owned companies at retaining employees. But new insights gleaned from existing research data show that, over a period of 12 years, businesses with employee stock ownership have gotten increasingly and dramatically better than conventionally owned firms at retaining employees.

How much better? Try 235 percent better!

Every four years, the General Social Survey (GSS)—often regarded as the single best source for sociological and attitudinal trend data in the United States—asks respondents if they were laid off in the previous year. The results, which are analyzed by Professors Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse of the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, show that for every person laid off at a company with employee owners, multiple employees were laid off at conventionally owned firms.

Further, this multiple has increased significantly each time the survey has been conducted.

ESOP companies are 6.2 times more likely to retain employees than non-ESOP companies.

The graph above says it all: In 2002, for every employee laid off from a company with employee stock ownership, 3.1 employees were laid off from conventionally-owned companies.

Within 16 years, that number more doubled: In 2018, for every person laid off from a company with employee stock ownership, 6.2 employees were laid off from conventionally owned businesses.

This GSS data would not be available without the work of the Employee Ownership Foundation, which provides funding that makes it possible for questions on employee ownership to be asked in the GSS.

This funding is not inexpensive, but as the data show, the results are invaluable to the employee ownership community.

Because the Foundation funds these questions, professors Blasi and Kruse are able to access all the data from the survey. As a result, they can cross tabulate the data and obtain new insights into employee ownership on a scale—and with a credibility—that might not otherwise be possible.