Who are Raleigh’s and Durham’s largest employers? Which rise and fall on NC jobs lists?
Ordering the top employers in Raleigh, Durham, and the greater Triangle can be tricky. Companies aren’t compelled to disclose local headcounts. When asked, some like Cisco and SAS gave general hiring ranges; others like IBM and GlaxoSmithKline declined to share location-specific jobs figures at all.
But while employers don’t have to inform the public how many workers they have in the area, the vast majority do need to tell the government.
Each month, every business, school, nonprofit and government agency in the state that pays unemployment insurance taxes must report their jobs numbers to the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Some professions are exempt from this rule — like active military and elected officials — but it applies to more than 95% of jobs nationwide.
The N.C. Commerce Department keeps these hiring totals confidential. However, four times a year, the state uses this data to rank the biggest employers in all 100 counties — No. 1 to No. 25 — and updates the lists online. It also posts the top 300 employers statewide. Walmart is North Carolina’s largest employer, followed by Duke University.
Despite not displaying precise jobs numbers, the county-level rankings still reveal trends: Which companies appear to be hiring faster and which have receded in relative prominence? Since President Donald Trump retook office, these rankings also clarify to what degree federal policies will affect the Research Triangle workforce, from Duke and NC State to RTI International and the Environmental Protection Agency.
So, what company has replaced IBM as the largest employer in Research Triangle Park? Which are Wake County’s top hirers? And who is the biggest employer in Orange County or the No. 2 employer in Johnston County? Let’s explore.
All data is current through the summer of 2024.
Durham County (including most of RTP):
Key takeaways:
- Statewide, Duke University has around 44,500 employees between its school and hospital system. It remains the top employer in Durham County, an area that encompasses most of Research Triangle Park. Last week, Duke announced a hiring freeze in response to potential federal funding cuts from the Trump administration.
Federal actions expected to most impact Duke include a sharp reduction in the proportion of “indirect” costs that the National Institutes of Health would cover for research grants — a change that leaders say could cost the university roughly $194 million per year if it is ultimately enacted. Other proposed or potential actions, such as an increase on taxes for university endowments and cuts to Medicaid and other government-funded health care services, could cost the university an extra $500 million per year, Duke says.
- Behind Duke in Durham is one of the area’s fastest-growing staff. Driven by its Research Triangle Park office, Fidelity Investments entered this year with 8,290 workers in North Carolina, a 15% jump from its headcount at the end of 2022. Since 2017, Fidelity has gone from Durham’s No. 6 employer to No. 2. The company credited its increase to greater demand for “client-facing and technology positions” in recent years.
- Since 2017, IBM has dropped from the second-largest employer in the county to No. 7. In January, the global tech company announced a “workforce rebalancing” — its second in two years — which IBM told The News & Observer this week would affect “a low single-digit percentage of IBM’s global workforce.” (IBM also owns the Raleigh software provider Red Hat, which is the No. 16 employer in Wake County.)
- The pharmaceutical company GlaxosmithKline has also fallen on the list, from Durham’s fourth-largest employer in 2014 to No. 15.
- Cisco, No. 4, told The N&O it has more than 4,950 employees in the Research Triangle Park area. And the semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed is for now No. 5, but its position could fall in the next updated list after the Durham company reduced its headcount by 20% over the latter half of 2024 (and announced further layoffs earlier this month).
- Two more organizations that could see their positions change are RTI International (No. 9) and the EPA (No. 19). In early March, the global research nonprofit RTI made its second staff reduction in as many months, and said “continued federal funding cuts” could lead to more layoffs. And this week, The N&O reported on EPA plans to eliminate the agency’s Office of Research and Development, which employs hundreds in RTP.
Wake County:
Key takeaways:
- Wake County’s biggest riser in recent years has been Amazon. The e-commerce giant went from No. 21 in 2020 to No. 5 on the current list. The reason is RDU1, the expansive fulfillment center in Garner that Amazon opened in August 2020. At the start of this year, the facility had 4,770 workers.
- Notably, Wake County’s two largest employers are operating under hiring freezes. In early March, Wake County Public School System (No. 1) announced a partial freeze as the district experienced “significant financial challenges that will extend beyond the upcoming school year.” In February, NC State University (No. 2) halted all hiring across its 10 campuses, citing uncertainty over the impacts of executive orders by President Donald Trump and guidance from his administration, along with the potential for a federal government shutdown and financial challenges at the state level.
- SAS Institute, the analytics provider run by North Carolina’s richest resident, is the ninth-biggest Wake County employer, telling The N&O it has more than 4,000 area employees. Its relative position has decreased from No. 5 in 2020.
- Lenovo reentered the Wake County Top 25 in 2021, and most recently sits at No. 21. The tech company has its North American headquarters in Morrisville and shared that most of its 5,000-plus U.S. workers are based in the state.
Orange County:
One key takeaway:
One of Orange County’s rising employers landed just outside the top 10. The supermarket chain Wegmans opened its Chapel Hill location in 2021 and now is the county’s 11th-biggest employer according to state Commerce Department data.
Johnston County:
One key takeaway:
The Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk is the largest private employer in fast-growing Johnston County. It opened its first Clayton facility in 1993 where it makes injectable finished products (IFPs) like insulin pens. In 2015, the drugmaker announced plans to double its facility space southeast of Raleigh with a $1.85 billion investment, then the largest manufacturing commitment in state history. This project completed in 2020 and was the company’s first facility outside of Denmark to manufacture active drugs.
Propelled in part by demand for its weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo Nordisk in June announced the state’s largest-ever private life science investment, committing $4.1 billion and 1,000 more jobs to grow its Johnston County facility.
Chatham County:
One key takeaway:
Chatham County has yet to see two major manufacturing projects from recent years — one from the electric carmaker VinFast and the other from the chipmaker Wolfspeed — make a dent on its top employers list. After promising upwards of 7,500 jobs near the unincorporated town of Moncure, VinFast has postponed its factory plans until at least 2028, telling The N&O in February that the company had “no updates to the site plan or the timeline.”
On the western side of Chatham County, Wolfspeed is close to opening a massive materials plant near Siler City. However, the financially vulnerable company this month announced it would lay off a portion of its Chatham workforce, citing the need to strengthen its balance sheet in order to eventually achieve its commitment to hire 1,800 workers in the county.
All data is current through the summer of 2024.
N&O reporters Korie Dean and Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi contributed reporting.
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
