What is an employee ID number?

An employee ID number is a unique string of numbers issued to each employee of a given business. Employee ID numbers are useful for distributing payroll because they give bursars an easy way to distinguish between employees that requires fewer characters than writing out their names.

Many businesses do not require employees to know their employee ID numbers, as the numbers are only used for internal paperwork. However, in some companies, employee ID numbers double as a company Web portal login or are otherwise necessary to remember. In cases like these, the employee number can generally be found on a paystub, usually in one of the upper corners.