7 DC-area employers make Forbes 100 Best Large Employers

Forbes Magazine’s annual America’s Best Large Employers includes seven employers with headquarters in the Washington region in the top 100.

D.C.-based NASA is the only locally-based employer in the top 10, at No. 3. This year’s list has a total of 500 companies ranked.



Ranking second-highest locally on this year’s list is the U.S. Federal Reserve System in D.C., at No. 31. Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin ranks No 41.

Tysons Virginia-based Capital One Financial is No. 72, followed by Falls Church-based Northrop Grumman, at No. 90.

University of Maryland Medical System ranked No. 91, and Bethesda-based Marriott International ranks No. 99.

The list is based on anonymous surveys of 60,000 Americans working at a company or organization with at least 1,000 employees. They were asked to rate their willingness to recommend their own employer to friends and family, and asked for responses to their company’s working conditions, development opportunities, compensation and diversity and inclusion.

Institutes of education are well represented in this year’s list, despite the well-documented high rates of teacher burnout due to the pandemic. And health care companies were also a big part of the list, making up a quarter of the top 50 and half of the top 10.

Ranking No. 1 on this year’s list is Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, followed by Georgia utility company Southern Company. Behind NASA are Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Michelin Group.

The full Forbes Best Large Employers in America list is online.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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