Employee ownership works:  Companies with the main form of employee ownership, the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), grow 2.5% per year faster relative to their competitors after they set up a plan than they did before. Studies of ESOP companies between 2009 and 2013, which included the last recession, showed that ESOP companies defaulted on their loans at just two per thousand, per year. Based on quadrennial General Social Survey data back to the early 2000s, employees in employee ownership plans are laid off at one-third to one-fifth the rate of those who are not, depending on the survey year. In the 2008-09 recession, public companies with these plans rebounded faster than those without them.