Major Employers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

The School Board of Broward County is the largest employer in Broward County, with 25,059 employees in the 2025 ranking, followed by Memorial Healthcare System, Broward County Government and Broward Health (School Board of Broward County annual report, Table 19).

The ten Broward employers on that list employ 85,356 people between them, which the School Board of Broward County report puts at 7.7 percent of county employment (Table 19). The ranking is countywide, not a count of jobs inside Fort Lauderdale city limits. Table 19 names its 2025 source as the 2025 Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance/Broward County (Economic Sourcebook & Market Profile) and its 2016 source as the 2016 School Board of Broward County ACFR statistical section.

Two airlines appear in the Broward top ten: Spirit Airlines at 2,700 employees and JetBlue/JetBlue Travel Products at 2,369 (Table 19). AutoNation counts 2,469 Broward employees and American Express 2,600 in the same 2025 list.

Broward County Public Schools and Broward Health Medical Center list Fort Lauderdale addresses, and the city counted 2,933.80 full time equivalent employees of its own in fiscal 2024 (Broward County Public Schools; city annual report, schedule 17).

Broward County Public Schools runs the county district from the Kathleen C. Wright (KCW) Administration Center at 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale FL 33301; the district lists 754-321-0000 under Contact Us (Broward County Public Schools). Broward Health Medical Center stands at 1600 S. Andrews Ave, Fort Lauderdale, with 606 beds, and the location page lists 954-355-4400 (Broward Health Medical Center). Broward Health describes the medical center as the largest hospital in Fort Lauderdale, a claim from the hospital system about itself.

The city's 2,933.80 full time equivalent employees in fiscal 2024 compare with 2,494.90 in fiscal 2015 (City of Fort Lauderdale annual report, fiscal 2024, schedule 17). Police held 772.30 of those positions, Fire Rescue 528.80, Public Works (physical environment) 452.00 and Parks and Recreation 419.50 in fiscal 2024, and Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport staff counted 21.80.

In the 2016 Broward ranking reprinted in the same School Board of Broward County report, the City of Fort Lauderdale placed ninth with 2,479 employees; by 2025 it no longer appears in the county top ten (Table 19).

Port Everglades reports about 13,139 jobs directly dependent on its business in Fiscal Year 2025, a gain of more than 7 percent over the previous fiscal year (Port Everglades, June 5, 2026).

The table on the port's economic impact page totals 295,166 jobs (Port Everglades economic impact page). Port Everglades is an enterprise fund of Broward County government that runs on user fees rather than local tax dollars, and the Fiscal Year 2025 study by Martin Associates covers October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 (Port Everglades economic impact release). Cruise business activity rose 21.7 percent, generated in part from a record 4.7 million cruise guests, and direct local cruise jobs climbed 9.4 percent; record cargo of 1.167 million TEUs supported a 5.3 percent rise in direct cargo jobs.

The direct Port Everglades jobs split into 7,426 tied to cargo including petroleum and 5,893 tied to cruise; induced jobs add 9,990 and indirect jobs 9,274 (Port Everglades economic impact page). The 262,763 related user jobs, all on the cargo side, are jobs with shippers and consignees, and the port says they do not depend on the seaport marine terminals to the same extent as direct, induced and indirect jobs.

The Florida Department of Transportation credits Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport with 110,047 jobs and a $5.0 billion payroll, using its 2022 Statewide Aviation Economic Impact Study (FDOT Aviation Office, FLL profile).

The same FDOT profile gives Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport $8.8 billion in value added and $15.4 billion in economic output. FDOT defines the job figure as the total number of people employed as a result of the airport within a defined geography, a different measure from the employer headcounts in Table 19.

Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, owned and operated by the City of Fort Lauderdale, supports 22,959 jobs with a $1.2 billion payroll under the same 2022 FDOT study (Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport). Executive Airport and Airport Industrial Airpark tenants pay about $4 million in taxes each year, and the city airport says the two together are the second largest taxpayer in Fort Lauderdale.

Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector in the Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise area, with 196,400 of 914,500 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, a preliminary BLS figure (BLS Economy at a Glance).

The BLS page carries two names for the area: Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL in its title and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise, FL above its data table.

The Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in August 2026, preliminary and not seasonally adjusted, after 4.6 percent in July 2026 (BLS). Education and health services grew 2.6 percent over the year to August 2026, the fastest gain in the BLS table, while professional and business services fell 1.7 percent.

The City of Fort Lauderdale annual report names the primary service sectors inside the city as marine-related industries, tourism, retail and wholesale trade, and says service industries dominate local employment (City of Fort Lauderdale annual report, fiscal 2024).

The City of Fort Lauderdale says in its fiscal 2024 annual report that little reliable data exists on employment within the city, and the ranking on this page is the 2025 Broward County list (city annual report, fiscal 2024).

The note under the city's principal employers schedule (schedule 16) says its estimates are assembled from data provided by the Broward Alliance, Broward County Government, the Broward County School District and the city's Economic Development Department, and that information for prior years is unavailable. Comparing the two years in the School Board of Broward County report shows the change: Ultimate Software (2,550), the City of Fort Lauderdale (2,479) and Interbond Corp. of America (dba Brandsmart USA) (2,400) were in the 2016 Broward top ten, and Memorial Healthcare System grew from 11,500 to 16,927 employees by 2025 (Table 19).

A practical caution for anyone reading these counts: the Broward employer headcounts are a 2025 snapshot, the BLS sector figures for August 2026 are marked preliminary, and the Port Everglades page states 295,763 statewide jobs in its text while its own table totals 295,166 (Port Everglades economic impact page). The Port Everglades economic impact also rose 72 percent over the Fiscal Year 2024 report, and the port says the Fiscal Year 2025 study captured energy related user impacts that past reports had not fully accounted for (Port Everglades release).