According to the currently available data for 2021, a total of 162,980 people were employed in the city of Bonn in 15,175 establishments subject to social insurance contributions (excluding agriculture and public administration). As shown by data from the business register of Information- und Technik Nordrhein-Westfalen (IT.NRW) as the state statistical office, this was 2,815 more employees in Bonn than in 2020 (plus 1.6 percent, NRW: plus 1.1 percent).

The classification of establishment size classes made by IT.NRW differentiates between the classes zero to nine, 10 to 49, 50 to 249 and 250 or more employees. Overall, establishments with fewer than 250 employees account for 99.3 percent of all establishments in Bonn, and these 15,073 establishments employ 89,708 people (or 55 percent proportionately) subject to social insurance contributions. The other 102 large companies (104 in the previous year) with 250 or more employees employ 73,272 people (45 percent) who are subject to social insurance contributions. An examination of Bonn's business structures reveals a differentiated situation: micro-enterprises with up to nine employees account for 85.4 percent of all establishments and these make up 11.4 percent of the workforce. The group of small establishments with 10 to 49 employees comprises 17.7 percent of the employees and 11.1 percent of the establishments, the medium-sized establishments with 50 to 249 employees account for 25.9 percent of the employees and 2.9 percent of the establishments. Among large establishments with 250 or more employees, Bonn's employment share of 45 percent is very clearly above the figure for NRW as a whole (31.9 percent). However, a comparison with selected cities in the Rhineland shows that there are employees registered in large companies on a comparable scale to Bonn: For example, the share of employment in companies with more than 250 employees is 43 percent in Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, 43.4 percent in the neighboring city of Cologne and 45.8 percent in Leverkusen.

In the chamber district of the Bonn/Rhein-Sieg Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the two DAX-listed companies Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post DHL Group will be the largest private employers at the location in 2021, with around 22,100 employees. These two listed companies alone control the strategies for approximately 786,500 employees worldwide from their corporate headquarters in Bonn.