Orlando Industries Guide: Jobs, Wages, Clusters and Incentives

The Orlando industries section has seven deeper guides, one for each major cluster from tourism and conventions to military simulation, biotech, tech startups and themed entertainment design.

This hub answers the questions that cut across all seven: which Orlando industries employ the most people, what Orange County jobs pay, how large the tourism and convention base is, what the Research Park simulation cluster is, and how the City of Orlando helps a business grow. The Orlando major employers guide in the economy section names the large individual employers.

Leisure and hospitality is the largest employer group in the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area, at a preliminary 301.3 thousand jobs in August 2026, ahead of professional and business services at 281.4 thousand.

The figures are BLS current employment estimates for the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area, not the City of Orlando alone, and the August 2026 values are preliminary (BLS). Total nonfarm employment stood at 1,508.3 thousand, up 0.8% over 12 months, and the metro unemployment rate was 4.6% (BLS).

The gap at the top is small. Professional and business services in the Orlando metro trail leisure and hospitality by 19.9 thousand jobs, and both grew over the year, while financial activities and the trade, transportation and utilities group shrank (BLS). Orlando area construction employment also slipped 1.2% from August 2025 (BLS).

Orange County had 961,014 jobs in March 2026 and 56,445 establishments in the first quarter, and its average weekly wage in the first quarter of 2026 was $1,432, below the national average of $1,654.

Those are Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages figures, which count jobs covered by state and federal unemployment insurance programs by county, and they are preliminary (BLS). Orange County employment grew 1.2% from March 2025 to March 2026, while employment fell in 17 of the 27 largest Florida counties over the same year (BLS).

The Orange County average weekly wage rose 3.2% over the year, the same pace as Osceola County, but below the national gain of 3.9% (BLS). Only three large Florida counties paid above the national average: Miami-Dade at $1,797, Palm Beach at $1,784 and Hillsborough at $1,658 (BLS).

A practical note on timing: BLS has scheduled the second quarter 2026 county release for Wednesday, December 2, 2026, which will update these Orange County numbers (BLS).

Visit Orlando, the tourism bureau, estimates that Orlando welcomed 76,663,200 visitors in 2025, and the Orange County Convention Center offers 2,053,820 square feet of exhibit space.

The bureau splits its 2025 estimate into 70,325,600 domestic and 6,337,600 international visitors, and reports a hotel room inventory of 132,685 rooms, average occupancy of 71.4% and an average daily rate of $202.71, for 34.5 million room nights (Visit Orlando). Its domestic leisure segment alone accounts for 62,403,400 of the 2025 visitors, with an average stay of 2.9 nights (Visit Orlando). These are Visit Orlando's own estimates, not a government count. The bureau also reports that the Orange County Convention Center hosted 187 events in 2025, drawing 2,047,768 in total attendance, a figure the bureau calls a new record for the destination (Visit Orlando).

The OCCC fact sheet gives the building 7 million total square feet; its exhibit space splits into 1,103,538 square feet in the West Building and 950,282 square feet in the North-South Building, alongside 479,190 square feet of meeting rooms (Orange County Convention Center). The North-South Building exhibit hall alone covers 22 acres under roof (Orange County Convention Center). The Orlando convention and events economy guide and the Orlando tourism and hospitality industry guide take each of these further.

The military simulation cluster centers on the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, which the Navy calls one of the principal foundations of the Central Florida Research Park, and on Naval Support Activity Orlando, which supports it.

The Navy dates Naval Support Activity Orlando to October 1, 2003, when it was set up to provide services to NAWCTSD; the training systems division had moved to its current site in 1988 and is the Navy's principal center for modeling, simulation and training systems technologies (Navy Region Southeast). The Navy calls NAWCTSD one of the principal foundations of the Central Florida Research Park, which holds private industry, government and academic organizations (Navy Region Southeast).

The neighbors make it a cluster. The NSA Orlando page lists the U.S. Marine Corps Program Manager for Training Systems, the Orlando office of the U.S. Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation and the U.S. Navy Human Performance Center Orlando among the organizations adjacent to the base (Navy Region Southeast).

The two official pages name the Army office differently. The Navy page calls its major Army tenant unit the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation, the Army's equivalent to NAWCTSD (Navy Region Southeast), while the Army site at peostri.army.mil names the office Capability Program Executive Simulation, Training, Test and Threat, or CPE ST3, and neither page connects the two names (U.S. Army). CPE ST3 reported a joint morning colors ceremony on board NSA Orlando on September 30, 2026, a weekly event that also serves as a forum for Team Orlando information (U.S. Army). The Orlando aerospace and defense industry guide covers the contracts and companies around the base.

Orlando metro employment moved within a narrow band from March to August 2026, but government jobs dropped by about 8 thousand in June and July before returning in August.

The BLS monthly series are not seasonally adjusted, so they show the Orlando calendar as it is lived (BLS). Total nonfarm jobs peaked in May at 1,518.5 thousand, and leisure and hospitality peaked the same month at 306.8 thousand before easing to 301.3 thousand in August (BLS).

The government line is the one that moves most. It fell from 135.5 thousand in May to 127.1 thousand in June and rose back to 136.7 thousand in August, a summer dip that the August figure erased (BLS). The civilian labor force of the Orlando metro area peaked at 1,542.9 thousand in June and stood at 1,532.2 thousand in August, and the unemployment rate rose from 4.4% in March to 4.7% in July (BLS). Anyone comparing Orlando job numbers should compare the same month across years, not spring with summer.

The City of Orlando offers matching grants of up to $50,000 for facade and site improvements and up to $20,000 toward permit and impact fees, plus the STRIVE Orlando job incentive.

The Small Business Facade, Site Improvement and Adaptive Reuse Program reimburses up to $50,000 of improvements to underutilized properties in the City of Orlando, and the Business Assistance Program gives a matching grant of up to $20,000 to offset permit fees, impact fees and right of way improvements for new and expanding businesses (City of Orlando). A Transportation Impact Fee Waiver covers up to $20,000 of change of use transportation impact fees, and the Not-for-Profit Impact Fee Assistance Program offers up to $50,000 to eligible 501(c)3 groups for sewer and transportation impact fees (City of Orlando).

STRIVE Orlando is described by the city as a performance-based local job incentive meant to spread prosperity across the City of Orlando and the Greater Orlando region; the same page lists the Urban Job Tax Credit Program and the Community Contribution Tax Credit Program (City of Orlando).

The city Economic Development Department's business development team answers at 407.246.2821 in City Hall, 400 South Orange Avenue, 6th Floor (City of Orlando). Last verified: October 18, 2026, on the City of Orlando incentive and business development pages and the BLS Orlando data pages.