Who actually employs Augusta,
the CSRA's biggest employers

Augusta's job market has three anchors, and everything else orbits them.

Fort Gordon is the largest single employer in the metro by the garrison's own count: 15,866 service members plus 13,384 civilian employees, for 29,250 total, per the USAG Fort Gordon garrison commander briefing to the AUSA Greater Augusta Chapter (briefing labeled June 16, 2020, with figures updated April 3, 2018). That split is dated, and it is the most recent official military/civilian breakdown published. It does not include contractors, and no current primary source gives an all-in total. The same briefing shows what the installation actually does: the Cyber Center of Excellence is 35 percent of the installation population by command, NSA-Georgia is 22 percent, and training commands are 30 percent. For scale, the U.S. Army reported on May 29, 2026 that about 20,000 signal and cyber Soldiers train at Fort Gordon each year. That is training throughput, not employment, but it tells you how central the cyber mission is. If you are moving here on military orders, our Fort Gordon newcomer guide covers the rest.

The Savannah River Site is the second anchor and the most current federal figure in the region: about 12,700 total workers, per the SRS Overview Fact Sheet (srs.gov, February 2026). That counts DOE federal staff plus every contractor on site, from Savannah River Nuclear Solutions to the security force. The same sheet puts the site's annual budget near $3.8 billion. The Site sits in Aiken and Barnwell counties, South Carolina, about half an hour from Augusta, and its payroll is one of the main reasons the South Carolina side of the metro exists.

Healthcare and education form the third anchor, and together they are the biggest civilian cluster. Augusta University employs about 6,000 people (1,800-plus faculty and 4,200 staff, with 11,500-plus students), per the university's official Fall 2025 leadership profile. Piedmont Augusta employs more than 4,000 across its main and Summerville campuses, per Piedmont's FY2025 fact sheet. Wellstar Health System counts 35,000 team members system-wide (August 2026 press release), and its newest local piece is the 100-bed Wellstar Columbia County Medical Center in Grovetown, a $378 million hospital that opened August 26, 2026 with about 1,200 jobs, per Wellstar MCG Health President Ralph Turner in Augusta Business Daily (May 2026). Wellstar does not publish an Augusta-specific headcount, so the system figure is the honest one to use. The VA Augusta Health Care System, anchored by the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, employs about 2,500 to 2,700 people across two Augusta campuses and clinics in Aiken, Athens, and Statesboro, per official VA press releases (October 2025 and February 2025).

The table below covers the metro on both sides of the river. Dates matter here: the two official employer lists (Augusta Economic Development Authority, circa 2021; Development Authority of Columbia County brochure, 2021-2022) are the most recent published lists with headcounts, so several figures below are a few years old. Where sources disagree, both numbers are shown.

Figures not on this table are not verified. Wellstar MCG Health and Doctors Hospital of Augusta publish no official Augusta headcounts. Augusta Technical College publishes none. No primary source gives current Augusta headcounts for ADP, Nutrien, Ferrara Candy, Syensqo (the former Solvay), Leidos, or the big defense contractors beyond BAE. When a number here goes stale, tell us and we will recheck it.

No other civilian sector in the CSRA employs like healthcare, and it is not close. Add up Piedmont Augusta (4,000-plus), Augusta University (about 6,000, much of it health sciences), the VA system (about 2,500 to 2,700), and Wellstar's growing footprint, and you are looking at well over 12,000 jobs before counting private practices, nursing homes, and home health.

The cluster has a center of gravity: the medical district around downtown Augusta, home to Wellstar MCG Health's 478-bed medical center, the 154-bed Children's Hospital of Georgia, and the region's Level I trauma center covering 13 counties. Piedmont Augusta runs the other big nonprofit footprint with 812 beds across two campuses. Doctors Hospital of Augusta (HCA), a 350-plus bed hospital with a Level II trauma center and the Joseph M. Still Burn Center, is a major presence too, though HCA publishes no official local headcount.

The newest piece is in Grovetown. Wellstar Columbia County Medical Center opened August 26, 2026: 100 beds, $378 million, about 1,200 jobs. That is the single biggest healthcare jobs addition to the metro in years, and it sits in the fastest-growing part of Columbia County.

Augusta builds things, and the mix is wider than people expect. The headline names are the golf car makers: Textron Specialized Vehicles, which builds E-Z-GO cars at its Augusta headquarters (about 1,500 employees per the company's September 2024 overview deck), and Club Car, also headquartered here (more than 900 employees per CEO Mark Wagner in Augusta Business Daily, March 2025). Augusta is, without much exaggeration, one of the golf car capitals of the world.

Then the list fans out. ADP runs customer service operations in Augusta (1,542 per the Augusta EDA's 2021 page, though a 2021-2022 Columbia County brochure says 1,000; the company has not published a current local figure). Graphic Packaging makes paperboard here. FPL Food processes beef. Starbucks runs both a soluble plant and a roasting plant in Augusta. Cardinal Health makes disposable medical supplies. Across the river in Aiken County, Bridgestone runs two tire plants (2,000-plus workers) and Kimberly-Clark's Beech Island plant, the company's largest global facility, employs roughly 2,000 and is adding 150-plus jobs in a $200 million expansion slated to come online in the second quarter of 2027. In Columbia County, Amazon's fulfillment operation (4,200 per the 2021-2022 brochure) and John Deere's plant (1,500) are the big private names.

Treat the circa-2021 economic development lists as a starting point, not gospel. They are the most recent official lists with headcounts, and several names on them have changed: Solvay's Augusta polymers business is now Syensqo after the December 2023 demerger, for example. Where this page could verify a newer company-issued number, it used it.

The cyber story in Augusta starts at Fort Gordon and radiates outward. The Cyber Center of Excellence is 35 percent of the installation's population by command and NSA-Georgia is another 22 percent, per the garrison's 2020 briefing. About 20,000 signal and cyber Soldiers train there every year (U.S. Army, May 2026). That concentration is why the private side exists.

Downtown, the Georgia Cyber Center anchors the civilian side: a state-owned complex built to put Army cyber, university researchers, and private companies in the same buildings. On the contractor side, the verified numbers are thinner than the marketing. BAE Systems reported nearly 500 employees across Fort Gordon and Augusta in a November 2020 Business Wire release, calling itself one of the largest defense contractors in the area, with a new lease sized for 200 more. Unisys announced up to 700 local jobs for its Augusta client service center (2014-2016 releases), a target rather than a payroll count, supporting work including the Army Enterprise Service Desk. Janus Research Group, a defense contractor headquartered in Evans, appears at 140 employees in the 2021-2022 Columbia County brochure. For Leidos, CACI, SAIC, ManTech, and the other big federal IT names with Augusta offices, no primary-source local headcount could be found, so this page does not guess.

The honest read: the cyber corridor is real, it is anchored by the federal mission, and the private payroll around it is growing but poorly documented in public sources. If a contractor's local headcount matters to your job search, ask the company directly.

Four giant projects are landing in the CSRA at once, and the jobs conversation around them needs a clear head. Here is what is verified, from our data-centers guide (researched September 24, 2026).

Google is building an approximately 8-million-square-foot campus at the White Oak Technology Park in Columbia County, between Appling and Harlem, announced July 23, 2026. A county-commissioned study models about 1,667 direct operational jobs at a full 15-million-square-foot buildout. That is a modeled maximum, not a promise. Contractors are already holding job fairs, and the workforce pipeline runs through Augusta Technical College, local schools, and Fort Gordon.

Meta is building an $800 million, 715,000-square-foot AI facility at the Sage Mill Industrial Park in Graniteville, South Carolina. It is under construction and targeting spring 2027: about 100 permanent staff, with about 1,200 skilled-trade workers at peak construction, per Meta's March 30, 2026 testimony to the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee.

QTS is building Project Eisenhower at 2883 Gordon Highway in Augusta: six buildings, 2.15 million square feet, a $2 billion investment (Augusta Chronicle, March 27, 2026). Expect 160 to 200 permanent jobs at about $70,000 average pay. Construction estimates differ by source (600 per the Chronicle, about 1,000 over time per WRDW), and there is no written jobs commitment.

Project Azalea in Thomson (McDuffie County) won rezoning approval March 17, 2026: up to six buildings, about 125 full-time jobs per the February 13, 2026 development review assessment, and about $25 million in annual local tax at full buildout. The operator is still unknown. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration was negotiating a phased lease for an AI data center at the Savannah River Site with an Amentum/DC BLOX consortium as of July 20, 2026.

The honest framing: construction is the jobs story for 2026 through 2028, and it is a big one. Permanent operations jobs number in the hundreds per project, not the thousands. Brookings found in August 2026 that a typical county gains 100 to 200 data-processing and telecom jobs in the decade after its first large data center arrives. These projects matter enormously for the tax base and for construction trades. They are not, on their own, a second Fort Gordon.

If you are relocating for work, the shape of this market favors a few profiles. Federal and federal-adjacent workers (military, DOE, VA, contractors) have the deepest bench of options, and the cyber mission keeps pulling cleared talent. Healthcare workers have the most employers competing for them. Manufacturing and logistics workers have real choices on both sides of the river, from golf cars to tires to fulfillment.

Two practical notes. First, a large share of the region's best-paying jobs sits behind a clearance or a specialized credential. If you have one, say so early. Second, jobs are only one line in the budget. Our cost-of-living guide, publishing October 7, puts paychecks next to housing, taxes, and everyday prices, because a salary number means nothing without the other side. And if the move involves Fort Gordon, start with the Fort Gordon newcomer guide, which covers the parts of the transition no employer briefs you on.