Little Rockruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Healthcare & medical research
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Arkansas Children's Hospital, Baptist Health, CHI St. Vincent, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
UAMS is the state's only academic medical centre and among its largest employers in a single institution, with a research and clinical footprint that reaches every county. Arkansas Children's is the only paediatric hospital in the state, which makes Little Rock the place families with a sick child end up regardless of where they live.
State government
Arkansas State Capitol, the Department of Finance and Administration, the Department of Human Services, the Arkansas Supreme Court, ARDOT
Little Rock is the seat of everything the state does, and the agencies and the law and lobbying sector around them are the reason the local labour market is steadier than the metro's size would predict. It also means a great deal of downtown office space is public sector.
Banking & finance
Bank OZK, Simmons Bank, Stephens Inc., Arvest, a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis branch
For a metro of this size the financial sector is disproportionate: two substantial banks headquartered here plus Stephens, one of the largest privately held investment banks off Wall Street, which has been in Little Rock since 1933.
Retail, data & telecoms
Dillard's, Windstream, Acxiom, FIS
Dillard's is a national department store chain run from downtown Little Rock, and Acxiom effectively invented consumer data brokerage here in the 1960s. Note that Walmart, Tyson and J.B. Hunt are in the north-west corner of the state, three hours away — a distinction almost every outsider gets wrong about Arkansas.
Aerospace & defence
Dassault Falcon Jet, Little Rock Air Force Base (Jacksonville), Lockheed Martin, Safran
Dassault's Little Rock site is the completion centre where Falcon business jets are finished — interiors, paint, delivery — and it is the largest of its kind the company runs. Little Rock Air Force Base, twenty minutes north, is the training hub for C-130 crews across the entire US Air Force.
Transport & logistics
Port of Little Rock, Union Pacific, the Arkansas River navigation system, I-30 / I-40 freight corridors
Little Rock sits where I-30 and I-40 cross, which is one of the busiest freight intersections in the country, and the Port of Little Rock is a slack-water harbour on the McClellan-Kerr navigation system. The port has drawn a run of manufacturing investment on the back of it.
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