Miami Major Employers: The 15 Largest in Miami-Dade, 2025

Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the largest employer in Miami-Dade County, with 33,994 employees in 2025, followed by Miami-Dade County government with 30,089 and the University of Miami with 23,680, according to the county principal employers table.

The table sits in the statistical section of the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, a county document, which credits FloridaCommerce, the Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research, and the Beacon Council Miami Business Profile (Miami-Dade WASD 2025 ACFR, Principal Employers). The 15 employers together account for 183,452 jobs, or 12.69 percent of total county employment in 2025.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the 2025 WASD ACFR principal employers schedule, the county 2025 Annual Report to Bondholders, the BLS 2025 Miami-Dade employment file, and the Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and MIA About pages.

Six of the 2025 top 15 are governments, their agencies or a county-governed system by name or by their own description: the school district, the county government, Jackson Health System, the Postal Service, Homeland Security and the City of Miami.

The City of Miami and Miami-Dade County are separate employers in the table. The county government counts 30,089 employees, while the City of Miami counts 4,935, ranked 14th, up from 3,820 and 10th place in 2016 (Miami-Dade principal employers). No other Miami-Dade city, such as Miami Beach or Coral Gables, appears as a line in the table.

Jackson Health System answers to the county: Jackson says it is governed by the Public Health Trust, citizen volunteers acting on behalf of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners (Jackson Health System). Its 14,740 employees in 2025 compare with 8,163 in 2016.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools describes itself as the 3rd largest school district in the U.S. on its home page (Miami-Dade County Public Schools). In 2016 the county table also listed the U.S. Federal Government with 19,300 employees and Florida State Government with 19,200, and neither appears as a single line in the 2025 Miami list, which names the United States Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security.

The University of Miami is the largest non-government name in the 2025 Miami-Dade table, with 23,680 employees, followed by Publix Super Markets with 14,226 and American Airlines with 11,523.

The other company names in the top 15 are Amazon Airlines with 7,853, Walmart with 7,160, Baptist Hospital of Miami with 5,665 and Baptist Health South Florida with 4,914 (Miami-Dade WASD 2025 ACFR). The name Amazon Airlines is printed exactly that way in the county table; the document does not say which Amazon units it covers.

Baptist is listed twice in 2025, once as Baptist Hospital of Miami and once as Baptist Health South Florida, which together make 10,579 employees. In 2016 the same Miami-Dade schedule listed Baptist Health South Florida alone with 13,369 and no Baptist Hospital of Miami line, and the table does not explain the split.

American Airlines, at 11,523, is nearly unchanged from 11,773 in 2016. MIA itself is operated by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and is the property of Miami-Dade County government (MIA About Us), and the airport does not appear as its own line in the Miami-Dade table.

The biggest Miami-Dade gains since 2016 came in higher education and hospitals: the University of Miami grew from 13,864 to 23,680 employees, Jackson Health System from 8,163 to 14,740 and Miami-Dade College from 2,572 to 6,375.

Several 2016 names have dropped off the 2025 Miami-Dade list, including Mount Sinai Medical Center with 3,402, Florida Power and Light Company with 3,011, Miami Children's Hospital with 2,991 and Homestead Air Force Base with 2,810 (2016 principal employers, WASD ACFR). Publix, Amazon Airlines, Walmart, the Postal Service, Baptist Hospital of Miami and Homeland Security have no 2016 entry.

The share held by the top 15 barely moved: 164,918 jobs and 12.35 percent of Miami-Dade employment in 2016, against 183,452 and 12.69 percent in 2025. The county 2025 bondholder report puts it in plain terms, stating that no single industry dominates the County employment market, and it carries its own version of the 2025 largest employers list, marked unaudited (Miami-Dade 2025 Annual Report to Bondholders).

Mostly yes: the Miami-Dade County 2025 Annual Report to Bondholders and the Water and Sewer Department ACFR give the same 15 employers with the same headcounts, but they name the seventh employer differently.

The bondholder report, marked unaudited, lists Amazon with 7,853 employees, where the ACFR table prints Amazon Airlines with the same number, and it writes U.S. Postal Services for the Postal Service line (Miami-Dade 2025 Annual Report to Bondholders). Both Miami-Dade documents credit FloridaCommerce and the Beacon Council for the figures.

The bondholder report also carries a county jobs table by industry for September of each year. For September 2025 it shows 146,500 retail trade jobs, 10.9 percent of the Miami-Dade total, 100,400 in transportation, warehousing and utilities, and 63,300 in construction, up from 51,900 in September 2021 (county employment table). The report credits that table to the BLS Current Employment Statistics, prepared by the county Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, and its figures differ from the annual BLS averages in the next section.

The employer table covers only about one Miami-Dade job in eight; industry payroll counts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show where the other jobs are, led by health care and social assistance with 179,291 jobs in 2025.

The 2025 BLS file for Miami-Dade lists 132,250 jobs in accommodation and food services, 141,088 in retail trade and 95,301 in transportation and warehousing (BLS QCEW 2025, Miami-Dade). Local government educational services (industry 611, local government ownership) shows 31,855 jobs, a different measure from the 33,994 employees the employer table credits to Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

The two Miami counts come from different sources: the BLS QCEW annual averages, and an employee count the county table credits to FloridaCommerce and the Beacon Council. Each Miami figure is quoted here with its own source.

The Miami economy hub covers countywide pay and the 2026 job trend, and the PortMiami and Miami International Airport guides cover the impact estimates those two agencies publish.