Rich mix of private, public

The Philadelphia region's biggest employers include a diverse list of drug and chemical makers, military contractors and specialized financial firms.

At the top are the universities and their affiliated hospital networks - Jefferson, Penn and Temple - nonprofit groups whose size and growth make them major economic players.

In the 10 counties stretching from New Hope to New Castle, Del., drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. and military electronics contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. each employs more people than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Supervalu Inc.'s Acme Markets or any other retailer. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States and in Pennsylvania as a whole.

At least 80 publicly traded companies and dozens of private and nonprofit institutions employ more than 1,000 people each in the region, according to an Inquirer survey.

Overall, one-third of Philadelphia-area workers are in education, health, professional or business services. Nationwide, it is one in four.

Government, including the military, employs 16 percent of U.S. workers. Here, it is just 12.6 percent.

Manufacturers such as DuPont Co., Boeing Co., Rohm & Haas Co. and General Electric Co. remain major local employers, and Germany's Siemens AG has consolidated a string of medical-device-makers into one of the region's biggest tech employers. But overall, factories employ less than 8 percent of the regional workforce, compared with more than 10 percent nationwide, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data for mid-2007.

Another German firm, business-software firm SAP AG, competes for local talent with Unisys Corp., a pioneer computer-maker that became a government-data manager, SunGard Data Systems Inc., a privately held leader in financial-transaction software, and a few other big-name tech firms. But overall, information services accounts for just 1.9 percent of local jobs, compared with 2.2 percent for the nation as a whole.

Accounting, law and other professional services are overrrepresented; leisure and hospitality are underrepresented, compared with the national averages. Construction is also "underweight," but that is typical in metropolitan areas, said economist Timothy Schiller of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.