Fresh employer numbers show the public sector still calling the shots across the metro area, with federal, state, and local agencies plus public institutions crowding the top of the list while big private employers round out the top 10. The pattern is familiar: taxpayer-backed payrolls and sprawling nonprofit systems tend to hold steady, even as private companies trim, merge, or reshuffle staff. For a lot of local workers, the biggest paychecks are still coming from government offices, school systems, and hospitals instead of app makers or retail brands.
According to Crain's Chicago Business, the U.S. federal government remains the Chicago area’s single largest employer, with about 55,138 workers in the latest count. Crain’s data package, published Feb. 23, pulls headcounts from public agencies, hospital networks, universities, and major corporations to build the 2026 ranking. The picture that emerges is not exactly a plot twist: government and public institutions still dominate the top spots.
According to Chicago Public Schools, the district employs 46,244 people in the 2025–26 school year. That figure includes teachers, school-based staff, and central office employees, and it helps cement CPS as the region’s second-largest employer by headcount. The district’s “Stats and Facts” page, updated in February 2026, confirms how deeply the school system is woven into the city’s labor market.
City government is not exactly running lean either. A recent procurement notice from the City of Chicago, posted on GovTribe, describes a workforce of roughly 33,000 employees spread across 39 departments as the city shops for a new time-and-attendance and payroll system. That scale helps explain why City Hall itself ranks among the area’s largest employers and why budget decisions downtown ripple across the broader labor market. Layered on top of federal agencies and the CPS headcount, city payrolls help keep public employment squarely at the center of the regional economy.
Private employers fill out the top 10
Private sector heavyweights still claim big chunks of the region’s jobs, even if they trail the public giants. Crain's Chicago Business puts Amazon at about 32,000 local employees, a roughly 3.8% year-over-year decline. The ranking also slots in major health systems Advocate Health Care, with 31,761 workers, and Northwestern Medicine, with 31,615, along with the University of Chicago at 23,044 employees.
Crain’s rundown also flags Cook County, United Airlines and additional hospital systems, sketching out a job base that mixes government offices, airports, warehouses, lecture halls and operating rooms. The result is a top tier of employers that leans heavily on public institutions and health care, with private corporations filling in the rest of the picture.
Wages and the health care pull
Health systems on the list are trying to keep their jobs attractive by nudging pay upward. Advocate Health said this year it set a unified minimum starting rate of $18.85 an hour as part of a broader compensation push, a move outlined in market notices such as a statement from Atrium Health Floyd. That enterprise-wide shift is aimed at improving retention and hiring for clinical and support roles across Illinois and neighboring states.
Those wage moves help explain why hospitals and university medical centers remain some of the steadiest job engines in the region. Even when corporate head counts rise and fall with market cycles, health care networks tend to keep recruiting nurses, techs, cleaners and administrators, which keeps their spot near the top of the employer rankings secure.
What to watch next
For workers and policymakers, the 2026 lineup is a reminder that public payrolls act as something like Chicago’s economic ballast while private employers expand, contract or relocate. Federal hiring cycles, City Hall budget debates and staffing decisions at hospitals and universities are likely to do as much to shape the local job market as the next corporate relocation headline.
Job seekers who want to dig deeper into who is hiring, shrinking or holding steady can turn to the full data package from Crain's Chicago Business, which offers a more detailed breakdown of the complete list and year-over-year changes.
