Cambridge, Massachusetts is commonly referred to as the most entrepreneurial place on earth. More than 100,000 people are employed by Cambridge's nearly 5,300 businesses, in fields such as professional services, health care, technology, and the city's over 150 nonprofit and social service agencies.

The two largest employers in Cambridge are Harvard and MIT, and one-sixth of all Cambridge jobs are in higher education. Other major employment sectors include government at the local, state and federal levels, health care, and life sciences and technology. Cambridge's largest private employers are almost exclusively biotechnology, health care and high tech firms.  View Top 25 Employers

Biotechnology
Discoveries are made every day in the labs of Cambridge's biotechnology corporations, which make up nearly one-third of Massachusetts's biomedical companies. Cambridge has established itself as the epicenter of the world's biotechnology industry, currently hosting approximately sixty-five biotech companies which employ more than 10,000 people, including leading-edge companies such as Alkermes, Biogen IDEC, Genzyme, Wyeth, Shire, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and the prestigious Whitehead Institute. The cluster of life science companies in Cambridge, specifically in the Kendall Square area, has earned it the nickname "Genetown."

High Tech
The city's robust high tech sector accounts for nearly fifteen percent of Cambridge's employment base. Cambridge continues to maintain its competitive advantage in the innovative high tech sector because of its well-educated work force, proximity to prestigious higher education institutions, access to capital, and its entrepreneurial spirit and culture. Some of the industry leaders based in Cambridge include Akamai Technologies, BBN Technologies, and Draper Laboratories.