24 N.J. companies earn spots on Forbes list of America’s Best Large Employers

Forbes magazine and research firm Statista for the 11th straight year have ranked America’s Best Large Employers. New Jersey landed 24 companies among the 700 ranked by Forbes on the list in 2026, up from 21 a year ago.

The annual rankings were based primarily on survey responses from more than 217,000 employees working at companies within the U.S. that employ more than 1,000 people. The organizations were stratified so that companies with 1,000 to 5,000 employees were deemed midsize, while companies with more than 5,000 employees were considered large employers.

Survey respondents (who remained anonymous so they could answer freely) were asked if they would recommend their employer to others and to rate it based on a range of criteria, including salary, work environment, benefits and opportunities to advance. Participants were also asked if they would recommend their previous employers (within the past two years) and the employers they knew through their industry experience or through friends or family who worked there.

The Garden State lived up to its reputation as the “medicine chest of the nation,” with six drug and biotechnology companies making the list. Homegrown pharma Johnson & Johnson (No. 140) earned a spot in the prestigious ranking. The other drug and biotechnology businesses whose origins are outside of America that have U.S. headquarters in New Jersey are Novo Nordisk of Plainsboro (No. 42), Kenilworth-based Merck & Co. (57), Sanofi of Bridgewater (572), Bayer in Whippany (597) and Novartis in East Hanover (651). In 2024, Novo Nordisk ranked as the best large employer by Forbes. 

Adjacent to the pharmas were medical equipment and services companies Quest Diagnostics of Secaucus (588) and Becton Dickinson of Franklin Lakes (697) and health-care services company Cooper University Health Care of Camden (114).

Four so-called FIRE companies (Finance, insurance, real estate) from New Jersey earned spots on the Forbes list: TD Bank of Cherry Hill (137), Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey in Newark (236), Prudential Financial of Newark (285) and Chubb in Warren (511).

Here is the list of all the New Jersey companies that made the Forbes list.