Most major ballet companies employ dancers on a year-round basis, except in the United States, where contracts for part of the year (typically thirty or forty weeks) are normally offered.
Ballet companies routinely make a loss at the box office and depend on external financial support of one kind or another.
The most common names for the two higher grades in English are principal and soloist and the junior dancers form the corps de ballet.
Some companies (especially in North America) have trainees or apprentices, who rank below the corps de ballet and may be unpaid.
Male and female dancers were historically split into separate hierarchies (for more information see ballerina).
All but the smallest companies have a separate administrative staff that deals with marketing, accounts, personnel issues, logistics and so on.
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