The Largest Employers in Berks County, and Where to Apply

If you're looking for work in Berks County and want to start with the places that hire the most people, the short answer is East Penn Manufacturing first, then Amazon, then the Tower Health hospital system.

After those three the list settles into specialty manufacturing, trucking, schools and government. Every one of them takes applications on a website, and I'll give you the address for each one below, along with what to expect once you get there, because the process is different at every door.

If you'd rather see what's open this week than work through a list of companies, start with the Berks County jobs board on this site. Most of what's on it comes from the employers on this page, Tower Health and East Penn especially.

The largest employers in Berks County by headcount

Before I take the employers one at a time, here's the county's own table of its principal employers, with a headcount and rank for each.

Principal employers in Berks County, for the year ended December 31, 2025. Boscov's appears on the same list with 1,383 employees and no rank number.

There's a second official list, kept by the state, and it disagrees about the middle. It puts Reading Hospital second and Amazon third. That's bookkeeping rather than a real argument. The state counts each legal employer separately, so Reading Hospital sits on its own line and Tower Health Medical Group appears further down, while the county reports the two as one combined figure. Both lists agree on who's first, and the order won't change where you apply. What you need from the table is the names.

East Penn Manufacturing jobs in Lyon Station

East Penn builds batteries on a campus at Lyon Station, in the county's northeast, and it's the largest private employer in the county. Its openings sort into three families, so figure out which one is yours before you search. Machine operator is the production floor, the people running the equipment. Maintenance and repair is the crew that keeps that equipment running. Professional roles is where I'd look for engineering, office and management work. It also runs student opportunities, so if you're still in school there's a track for you too.

Apply at dekacareers.com, or go straight to the postings at dekacareers.com/listings. If plant work in general is what you want, the manufacturing jobs page on our board collects openings from across the county.

Amazon jobs in Berks County

Amazon hires at scale here, hourly and salaried both, and the one thing to know is that it has two front doors. Picking the wrong one costs you an afternoon. Hourly warehouse, fulfillment and delivery work goes through hiring.amazon.com. Salaried corporate, engineering and management roles go through amazon.jobs. A warehouse shift won't appear on amazon.jobs no matter how you search, so decide which kind of work you want, go to that site, and use its location search to narrow things down to this area.

Reading Hospital jobs and Tower Health careers

Reading Hospital sits at 420 South 5th Avenue in West Reading, and it's the flagship acute care hospital of Tower Health. It carries a Level I trauma center emergency department, a cancer institute, a heart center and a maternity center, which is why its hiring runs so much wider than nurses. Its own job categories show how wide, and it's worth finding yours before you start clicking.

• Allied health is the usual label for clinical work outside nursing, so if you're a technologist or a therapist, start here.
• Entry level and administrative is probably your door if you don't have a healthcare credential yet.
• Nursing is one category and nursing support is a separate one, so if you work alongside nurses rather than as one, look under the second.
• Professional and technical, school of health sciences and social services fill out the list.

Physicians apply through a separate track, so if that's you, skip the general list. Everything else starts at towercareers.org/careers-home. That site runs on iCIMS, which is hiring software, and what it means for you is that your first application includes creating an account. Take your time with it, because every application after that reuses the same profile. For hospital openings beyond Tower Health, the healthcare jobs page on our board covers the county.

Carpenter Technology jobs in Reading

Carpenter Technology makes specialty alloy materials for critical applications, aerospace and medical among them. Its Berks work happens at Reading Operations, 101 West Bern Street in the city.

There's one thing to watch. Carpenter's corporate headquarters is in Philadelphia, so read the location line on every posting before you get attached, because a job listed at the HQ isn't a Berks job. Careers are at carpentertechnology.com/careers, and the applications run through Workday, which is another piece of hiring software.

Penske jobs in Reading

Penske leases trucks and runs logistics operations from a campus at 2675 Morgantown Road in Reading, and it hires for the shop and the road as well as the office. Its posted categories tell you which is which. Technician and collision repair technician is the shop, the people fixing and rebuilding trucks. Driver is the road. Warehouse and supply chain operations is the logistics side. The management trainee program is the way in if you'd rather run part of the business someday. Administrative and corporate roles cover the office. Everything is at penske.jobs.

Reading School District jobs

The district that serves the City of Reading is one of the county's ten largest employers, and a good share of what it posts has nothing to do with a classroom. That surprises people. Alongside elementary, middle and high school teaching, its posting categories include food service, maintenance and custodial, secretarial and clerical, security, and student support services.

Applications go through its Frontline portal at applitrack.com/readingsd/onlineapp. One feature is worth knowing about: the district keeps an application in active status for one school year. So one careful pass covers the whole hiring cycle rather than a single posting, and it pays to do it right the first time.

County of Berks jobs and state government jobs

Berks County government employs a couple of thousand people, and its openings spread across more departments than you'd guess: law and justice, and law enforcement; information systems; libraries and parks; human services, nursing and senior services; and administration and 911. If you've got office skills, a nursing license or a library background, there's probably a posting that fits.

Human Resources is on the 8th floor of the Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street in Reading, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the phone number is 610-478-6118. Start online at berkspa.gov/departments/human-resources and click through to the job list, since the county keeps that page current, and use the office if you get stuck.

State government isn't one workplace but a bucket: Commonwealth agencies with worksites in the county, counted together. Search at pa.gov/agencies/employment, which runs on the state's NEOGOV portal, and use the location filter, or you'll spend the evening reading about jobs in Harrisburg.

Walmart and Boscov's jobs in Berks County

Walmart runs multiple stores across the county and is consistently in the top ten by headcount. Don't hunt store by store. Search careers.walmart.com by ZIP code and let the map do the sorting.

Boscov's is the largest family owned department store in the country, and it's headquartered right here in Reading. Besides the sales floor, it runs a separate distribution operation in the county, so there's warehouse work under that name as well as retail. Its openings are at careers.boscovs.com.

Penn State Health St. Joseph jobs

You'll see this one under two names, so search for both. The official employer lists carry it as Saint Joseph Regional Health Network, and the sign on the building says Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center. It's at 2500 Bernville Road, north-west of the city, and applications go through the health system at pennstatehealth.org/careers.

Getting to a Berks County job by bus

If you don't have a car, this part matters more than anything above it. Two of the county's largest employers have a bus route named after them, which tells you who rides, and BARTA runs both. Route 12 is Lincoln Park via Reading Hospital, and Route 22 is Lyon Station / East Penn-Deka. Select Route 19 trips also serve the Amazon Fulfillment Center at 1098 Patriot Parkway, and Route 8 to Birdsboro names stops at Boscov's Distribution, Exeter Square Walmart and a Redner's park and ride.

For anywhere else on this page, pull up the route map at bartabus.com/schedules and trace it before you accept a shift. A 6 a.m. start you can't reach is a problem you'll be solving every single morning.

Help in person at PA CareerLink Berks County

If the online portals are grinding you down, there's an office with people in it at 1920 Kutztown Road, Suite F, in Reading, and the job seeker line is 610-988-1300. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday the office is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. On Wednesday it opens later, at 10 a.m., and closes at 4:30 p.m. The resource room keeps its own, shorter hours, weekdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., so plan around those.

There's more waiting for you there than a desk. There are internet computers you can apply from, so you don't need your own laptop. There are job search and training materials, apprenticeship and veterans resources, and access to unemployment compensation if you're between jobs. There's a free fax machine, and a copier at 5 cents a page, which matters the day an employer wants a paper copy. They also hold a large multi-employer job fair each spring and each fall. The dates move, so check their events calendar for the current one.

How to use this list

If I had to boil the page down to a plan, it's this. Decide which kind of work you want, pick the employer whose site matches it, and set up your account carefully the first time, since you'll be back on that site. Then check the jobs board here for what's open this week. It's strongest on Tower Health and East Penn, and it carries openings from the county's townships and boroughs as well. Applications sent through the board are reviewed before anything reaches an employer, so don't sit and wait on one. Apply on the employer's own site too.