We recently looked at the impact of employment growth on stock returns over the past 14 years. Today, I decided to share with you a list of the publicly traded companies with market caps of over $500 million with the highest employee growth. Those stocks are as follows:

Company Name Ticker % Empl Growth Current Employees Global Eagle Entertainment Inc ENT 24,233 730 Gentherm Inc THRM 6,282 7,403 Accelerate Diagnostics Inc AXDX 683 47 Safe Bulkers Inc SB 400 5 Resources Connection Inc RECN 316 2,915 IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc ICE 293 4,232 Tempur Sealy International Inc TPX 244 6,700 Pharmacyclics Inc. PCYC 223 484 ARRIS Group Inc ARRS 199 6,500 Retail Opportunity Investments Corp ROIC 177 61 Sagent Pharmaceuticals Inc SGNT 174 269 Triangle Petroleum Corp TPLM 170 165 XPO Logistics Inc XPO 153 2,259 American Public Education Inc APEI 153 3,492 Brookfield Property Partners LP BPY 150 15,000 Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc VRX 146 17,200 Fortress Investment Group LLC FIG 138 2,324 Spectrum Brands Holdings Inc SPB 131 13,500 Harbinger Group Inc HRG 128 13,742 Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc AEGR 121 217 NGL Energy Partners LP NGL 121 1,970 AMC Networks Inc AMCX 118 2,197

Given the backtest results for the year-over-year percent change in employees factor, I’m going to be avoiding these companies. A quick backtest of these top 1% employment growth stocks shows that these stocks realized a negative 5.93% annualized return over the past 14 years with annual rebalancing.

Disclosure: I do have any positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post at the time it was published.