The big picture.

• Author: Tschida, Anne
• Position: North Carolina's largest employers

Does size really count? A look at the state's largest employers shows that most of the job growth comes from small business.

Since the end of 1992, North Carolina has added 387,000 jobs, a 12% increase. But you won't find it on BNC's ranking of the state's 100 largest employers. Five years ago, the companies on the list employed 572,900. That number is now 576,800, up only 0.7%.

"It's old hat, but we've known for years that it's in the small-business start-ups, in the smaller high-tech companies that the real job creation has been happening," Wake Forest University economist Gary Shoesmith says.

The names on the list haven't changed much either, especially near the top. There's Food Lion, Wal-Mart, Sara Lee and Belk. Food Lion, the Salisbury-based grocery chain, went from second to first after adding 9,555 jobs in North Carolina in the last five years. It may pile on more in 1998. It plans to open 19 new or revamped stores in the state. Wal-Mart stepped up from No. 4 to No. 2 after adding 6,275 jobs since 1992.

FIVE YEARS AGO 1 Sara Lee 21,940 2 Food Lion 21,715 3 Belk 18,000 4 Wal-Mart 16,405 5 IBM 16,000 6 Sears, Roebuck 14,385 7 Winn-Dixie Stores 13,505 8 Burlington Industries 13,000 9 Duke Power 12,755 10 USAir 12,600 This past year, Food Lion had the biggest hike, adding 2,770 Tar Heel workers. J.C. Penney was close behind with 2,725. That's mostly because it acquired Eckerd Drug last February. Others shed employees. Charlotte-based Collins & Aikman dropped about 2,700 jobs, most of them in the Mastercraft Group upholstery division it sold in 1997. Another textile company, Greensboro-based Burlington Industries, cut 1,500.

Sara Lee, the Chicago-based apparel and food maker, has slashed 3,620 jobs from its North Carolina payroll since the end of 1992, when it was the state's largest employer. Now third-largest, it could get even leaner. By early 1998, it hopes to sell 13 textile plants, six of them in North Carolina employing [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] about 3,800 people. It expects to keep buying from these mills, but they could be scaled down. The company also plans to close a 400-employee sewing plant in Maxton.

In another restructuring, IBM the fourth-largest employer - started trimming its work force in several divisions at Research Triangle Park. There's a big difference between what IBM and Sara Lee are doing, Shoesmith says. "The jobs at IBM will be made up elsewhere...