All publicly traded companies must disclose their employee count by country. Corporate CEOs often say their employees are their most valuable resource. Employees are also a huge opex item. So as an investor, I'd like to know where this valuable resource is allocated across the globe.

Currently public companies are required to share the ratio of CEO pay to median employee pay. This is meaningless and tells the investor nothing. Investors would be more interested to see the where the employee count is growing or declining. It's the most valuable resource we're told so disclose it. Most disclose their branches or store count by country so shouldn't be any trouble to disclose their most valuable resource by country.

What's your reasoning for opposing this?

Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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What's your reasoning for supporting this? Or thinking it is a good idea?

Did you not read the OP?

This is perhaps the easiest thing to report.

🤔 pic.twitter.com/z6zKGSuy7n

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 26, 2024

I wonder what this is all about

MemphisAg1 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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It's none of the government's business.

Or anybody else's, including yours.

Not trying to be rude to anybody, but privacy and freedom are important.

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Publicly traded companies have a lot of reporting requirements that are otherwise none of anybody's business, this is pretty tame compared to some other ones.

MemphisAg1 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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It's none of the government's business.

Or anybody else's, including yours.

Not trying to be rude to anybody, but privacy and freedom are important.

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Is it your opinion publicly traded companies shouldn't disclose anything about their business to the public? The 10K and Qs are none of our business?

Dan Scott said:

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MemphisAg1 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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It's none of the government's business.

Or anybody else's, including yours.

Not trying to be rude to anybody, but privacy and freedom are important.

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Is it your opinion publicly traded companies shouldn't disclose anything about their business to the public? The 10K and Qs are none of our business?

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You're playing the scope-expansion game. "We require this, so requiring that shouldn't be a big deal."

No. The national origin of a company's employees is none of your business.

We already have massive compliance costs on our companies that drive up financial and regulatory reporting. If Gensler at the SEC had his way it would be more.

It has to stop.

I don't want to know the national origin of a company's employees. My suggestion is only the employee count in each country.

Dan Scott said:

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I don't want to know the national origin of a company's employees. My suggestion is only the employee count in each country.

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That's still none of your business. And I truly don't mean that disrespectfully, just as a matter of fact.

Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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This feels like a way for democrats to pick and choose which companies to favor or punish. Too many employees in Red counties might put you on the naughty list.

MemphisAg1 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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I don't want to know the national origin of a company's employees. My suggestion is only the employee count in each country.

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That's still none of your business. And I truly don't mean that disrespectfully, just as a matter of fact.

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That's ok. I am no easily offended

I'm confused by your statements though so give me an idea of what a public company should disclose? I like looking up Form 4s to see insider transactions. I'm assuming you think it's none of my business how many shares the CEO owns and when they buys/sells?

lb3 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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This feels like a way for democrats to pick and choose which companies to favor or punish. Too many employees in Red counties might put you on the naughty list.

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I think you misread the OP. I'm suggesting county by country not county.

Dan Scott said:

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lb3 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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What's your reasoning for opposing this?

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This feels like a way for democrats to pick and choose which companies to favor or punish. Too many employees in Red counties might put you on the naughty list.

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I think you misread the OP. I'm suggesting county by country not county.

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Thanks I misread that. It feels like additional reporting overhead. The libertarian in me says GTFO but the MAGA in me says it would be useful to track off/on-shoring of jobs.

Can't this already be gleaned from quarterly payroll taxes?

You keep trying to justify this new intrusion into private matters by referencing existing intrusions. Scope creep. That dog won't hunt.

MemphisAg1 said:

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You keep trying to justify this new intrusion into private matters by referencing existing intrusions. Scope creep. That dog won't hunt.

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I actually suggested replacing one reporting requirement "the CEO to employee pay ratio" for this.

Is a cash flow statement appropriate to share?

Why would any company give up that proprietary info for public to see which may tip their overall strategy of entering/exiting countries/markets?

CDUB98 said:

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If investors want to see this, they can put it to a vote at the annual meeting.

More government and laws are not required.

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This or companies could decide it is something their investors care about and voluntarily disclose it. About the only thing I would require is annual audited financials for public companies.

Some people think things like key risks should be disclosed as well but go read them in a 10K or S1 and they are a joke. They are every risk a lawyer could possible come up with plus a few more. It doesn't help the investor at all.

ETA. Far from the first thing we have seen from the incoming admin that calls into question their claims to reduce regulatory burdens on American businesses and make it easier to do business here.

akm91 said:

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Why would any company give up that proprietary info for public to see which may tip their overall strategy of entering/exiting countries/markets?

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Good point. It wouldn't be right to report every country. A company might have 2 randoms in a specific country for something undisclosed. So I'd change it to top 10 countries with over 50 employees.

From an investors POV, I want to know where the biggest opex item is allocated. There can be opportunity if I see too many high cost countries relative to a low cost country when comparing against the competition. From a U.S. stakeholder perspective, I'd like transparency on if US jobs are being replaced.

I don't see the investment value in disclosing where your employees are unless you're a racist focused on identity politics.

Disclosing you have employees in Israel, as an example provides nothing of investment value. However, if you are a racist or anti-semite... that info might be of value.

Disclosing you have employees in India or China or Russia... provides no investment direction... but it might provide political fodder.

The company I work for may or may not have employees in each of those countries.

Defense Contractors employed lots of Pakistanies over the years. The food industry employs tons of foreign workers.

Most companies disclose much of that information, already. If you think that info is valued for investing, you likely can find that info. Having a Government track those things would only be done for racist and political reasons.

Change my mind.

What burden? They already know this information and it's sitting in a database somewhere. Just hit send.

Data for h-1b is already published by the gov
https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employer-data-hub
Does the country matter ?

Jock92 said:

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What burden? They already know this information and it's sitting in a database somewhere. Just hit send.

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I see someone hasn't worked in HR in an international company. It ain't as easy as you think for a variety of reasons including local data privacy laws. Also, since it is a government filing, it would require a lot more double and triple checking since a false filing subjects the company to potential sanctions and liabilities.

Dan Scott said:

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MemphisAg1 said:

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Dan Scott said:

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I don't want to know the national origin of a company's employees. My suggestion is only the employee count in each country.

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That's still none of your business. And I truly don't mean that disrespectfully, just as a matter of fact.

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That's ok. I am no easily offended

I'm confused by your statements though so give me an idea of what a public company should disclose? I like looking up Form 4s to see insider transactions. I'm assuming you think it's none of my business how many shares the CEO owns and when they buys/sells?

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I remember when most small businesses didn't have to collect sales tax! In most cases the un-elected bureaucrats already have access to the information through other reports. The information is just not in the format they are asking you to provide, government is just too lazy to do the work themselves. And in many cases you are only required to fill out a form and hold onto the form and not send the bureaucrats the information on the stupid form you wasted time filling out or paid someone to fill out for you.

There are huge amounts of data that could be collected if some idiot bureaucrat, across a growing number of agencies has an "idea".
I personally think this helps government types to justify their existence and grow the size of government.

I agree with the posters that in most cases these are wild goose chases and it is none of governments business to have or know this information. DOGE can't get here soon enough!

If your business is privately held, it is none of the public's business to know. If it is publicly incorporated, then that privilege comes with whatever reporting and oversight requirements the public imposed.

geoag58 said:

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DOGE can't get here soon enough!

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DOGE took a detour.

How did DOGE go from “let’s cut wasteful government spending” to “here’s why we need to import more immigrants” almost overnight?

Did I miss something?!

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) December 26, 2024

I'm not making any investment decisions based on the nationality of the workforce. To me this is no different than DEI data. I don't care , quality of product or service and value are the drivers in purchase decisions. Financial metrics (past and projected) are the driver in investment decisions.

If all other things are roughly equal I'll buy American made first but the focus of a company should be optimizing quality, value , and of course profit and let the chips fall where they fall. I don't support tariffs as a way to make it easier for American companies to make profit , I support them as a negotiating tool to make foreign entities open their markets up to American goods and services, or otherwise fix issues we have with foreign government actions that are destructive to Americans.

How about the CEO being able to do a full forensic audit of you, the investor? After all, you are wanting to join his team. And since you are a team member he can disclose the audit results to the other partners and investors.