Eight out of 10 people working in Ulster do not produce a thing. That was the headline from a GMB union study this year into Ulster’s workforce.

Its research showed that in a UK region which was once a manufacturing powerhouse, service firms have become so dominant that in Belfast they provide more than 90% of all employment.

Of all workers in the province, 19.2% are in production industries. In Belfast the figure falls to 9.3%. The dominance of service industries is borne out in the Top 100, but perhaps not to the extent shown in the GMB figures.

But the biggest shake-up in the Top 100 this year has been provided by a soft services company.

Resource, formerly Maybin, has been transformed over the past year following a management buy-in. Its acquisition of Grove Services in Northern Ireland and CCS in the Republic, plus organic growth, has catapulted the Ballymena-based firm into the Top 10.

At number two in the list, it may soon even threaten Tesco for the top slot. The support services and facilities management firm, headed up by ambitious Terence Brannigan, believes there is room to grow.

After its purchase of CCS in Limerick last November, it acquired Dublin-based company Masterclean Services for an undisclosed sum earlier this year, bringing its all-island workforce to almost 8,000.

This year’s Top 100 lists resource’s workforce at 6,400, while Tesco is still the clear leader with 9,044 staff here.

Bombardier-Shorts, the aerospace firm that employs 5,330 in Ulster, was dislodged by resource to third.

Completing the top five are Quinn Group, which increased its workforce by more than 500 to 5,153, and Moy Park, which added some 750 workers. Royal Mail dropped three places to sixth.

The highest new entry this year was Almac Group, the Craigavon-based pharmaceuticals firm headed up by Sir Allen McClay, the Tyrone tycoon who made his name with Galen but is now ploughing an impressive new furrow.

FIVE TO WATCH, FIVE DESPATCHED

The five new entrants to the Top 100 are a diverse group:

Almac Group.

HCL BPO – a successful callcentre company.

Powerscreen makes stone and quarry machinery

Schrader Electronics is a manufacturer of tyre pressure gauges and part of GB-based engineering giant Tomkins

Norfolkline Irish Sea Ferries is the Irish Sea ferry operator. Of the five departures, only Daewoo Electronics might be considered a casualty. Clearway Disposals, a new entry last year, has now disappeared , partly because the business has now been split.

The other three changes are:

The elimination of Chilcott UK

Sodexho

W&G Baird as the size of the company has decreased. Over the last six years 45 businesses have entered, or reentered, the listings and 45 have left either by displacement or because of closure. This is a significant degree of ‘churn’, but an important caveat to this 'churn' figure is that some of the 45 leavers are still in business, maybe at a smaller size, and the threshold for entry has edged upwards.