Question

A company has been forced to reduce its number of employees. Today the company has 26% fewer employees than it did a year ago. If there are currently185 employees, how many employees did the company have a year ago?___ employees

Answer 1

Solution:

Given:

$\begin{gathered} Presently\text{ }26\text{ \% fewer employees.} \\ Present\text{ population}=185employees \end{gathered}$

The percentage of present employees is:

$100-26=74\text{ \%}$

Hence,

Let the number of employees the company had a year ago be represented by x

Thus,

$\begin{gathered} 74\text{ \% }of\text{ }x=185 \\ \frac{74}{100}\times x=185 \\ \frac{74x}{100}=185 \\ Cross\text{ multiplying,} \\ 74x=100\times185 \\ 74x=18500 \\ x=\frac{18500}{74} \\ x=250 \end{gathered}$

Therefore, the company had 250 employees a year ago.