Aldi is one of the 10 IL Companies Are Among America’s Best Employers

The state’s top 10 employers include companies in the retail, travel and healthcare industries, according to a new ranking from Forbes.

Eric DeGrechie,Patch Staff

Posted Wed, Aug 21, 2024 at 1:01 pm CT

ILLINOIS — Aldi, Grainger and Hyatt Hotels are the best employers with headquarters in Illinois, according to a new ranking from Forbes.

The Forbes report, America’s Best Employers By State, is based on a survey of more than 160,000 employees of companies with at least 500 people working in U.S. operations.

The survey, conducted by the market research firm Statista, asked participants how likely they were on a scale of zero to 10 to recommend their employer as a good place to work. Respondents were also asked to evaluate employers they’d worked for within the past two years, and organizations they knew within their industry or through friends or family who worked there.

By those measures, the top 10 employers with headquarters in Illinois are:

1. Aldi, a retail and wholesale company based in Batavia with 25,000 employees; Jason Hart is the CEO of the company, founded in 1976.
2. Grainger, a retail and wholesale company based in Lake Forest with 22,100 employees; D.G. Macpherson is the CEO of the company, founded in 1927.
3. Hyatt Hotels, a travel and leisure company based in Chicago with 51,000 employees; Mark Samuel Hoplamazian is the CEO of the company, founded in 1957.
4. Northwestern Medicine, a healthcare and social services company based in Chicago with 30,000 employees; Howard B. Chrisman is the CEO of the company, founded in 2016.
5. Rush University Medical Center, a healthcare and social services company based in Chicago with 1,900 employees; Omar B. Lateef is the CEO of the company, founded in 1972.
6. Ulta Beauty, a retail and wholesale company based in Bolingbrook with 56,000 employees; Dave Kimbell is the CEO of the company, founded in 1990.
7. John Deere, an automotive company based in Moline with 83,000 employees; John C. May is the CEO of the company, founded in 1837.
8. University of Illinois Chicago, an education company based in Chicago with 17,939 employees; Marie Lynn Miranda is the CEO of the company, founded in 1859.
9. Zurich North America, an insurance company based in Schaumburg with 9,000 employees; Kristof Terryn is the CEO of the company, founded in 1912.
10. Illinois Institute of Technology, an education company based in Chicago (editor’s note: number of employees not listed); Raj Echambadi is the CEO of the company, founded in 1890.

Workers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia answered the most recent survey. Those findings were supplemented with data from the previous three surveys. In all, 1,294 organizations made the final cut.