Jason Kottke points out that Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million people on the planet. And now time for fuzzy math…
The current estimates put world population at about 6.5 billion. That means Wal-Mart employs 0.0276923077% of the entire world, 1 of each 3600ish. About 64% of the world population is in the generally employable age range of 15-64. With that in mind, Wal-Mart employs about 0.0432692308% of the actual working population, or one of every 2311.

Of course, in the US the percentages are higher. There are 1.3 million Wal-Mart employees out of the 299.5 million in the entire States, which yields 0.434056761%. Almost 1 of every 230 people in the US works for Wal-Mart. Of the working population ages 15-64, (67.2% of the total), Wal-Mart employs 0.6459178%, or 1 of every 155, give or take. That’s a lot of folks.

Might as well close with the video showing where Wal-Mart new stores opened and how the network grew each year in the US. You can’t grow like that without satisfying customers… and pissing people off. Comes with the territory, unfortunately.