Howard County, Maryland
# Employer # of Employees
1 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 5,000
2 Verizon Wireless 2,028
3 Lorien Health Systems 2,000
4 Howard County General Hospital 1,777
5 Howard Community College 1,294
6 Leidos 1,195
7 Giant Food 1,050
8 The Columbia Association 900
9 Wells Fargo 842
10 Oracle Corporation subsidiary MICROS Systems 815
Economy
Howard County Public School System employs 8,136 of which 4,670 are teachers . [ 83 ] The County Government employs 3,323 outside of the school system with 672 police , 482 public works , and 472 fire and rescue employees . [ 84 ] The top ten private sector employers in Howard County are as follows : [ 85 ]
Howard County is a county in the central part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 287,085. Its county seat is Ellicott City. Howard County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area. However, recent development in the south of the county has led to some realignment towards the Washington, D.C. media and employment markets. The county is home to Columbia, a major planned community of approximately 100,000 founded by developer James Rouse in 1967. Howard County is frequently cited for its affluence, quality of life, and excellent schools. With an estimated median household income of $120,194 in 2016, Howard County had the second-highest median household income of any U.S. county in 2016. Many of the most affluent communities in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, such as Clarksville, Dayton, Glenelg, Glenwood, and West Friendship, are located along the Route 32 corridor in Howard County. The main population center of Columbia/Ellicott City was named second among Money magazine's 2010 survey of America's Best Places to Live. In 2010, the center of population of Maryland was located in the Howard County town of Jessup.