Greater Seattle Business Attraction Brief | August 2026

Greater Seattle’s business environment spans King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, offering companies access to one of the nation’s leading concentrations of technology, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and logistics capabilities. This August 2026 Business Attraction Brief examines current economic conditions, workforce strengths, business competitiveness, recent investment, and infrastructure across the region.

At a glance: Greater Seattle includes King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, with more than 2.3 million jobs and a $607 billion regional economy spanning technology, aerospace, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, maritime, logistics, and international trade.

Snohomish County, Washington | Business Attraction Brief

Snohomish County, part of the Greater Seattle region is a major aerospace and advanced manufacturing center in the Greater Seattle region, offering companies access to specialized engineering talent, industrial sites, global transportation infrastructure, and an established manufacturing supply chain.

Economic indicators

Snohomish County had 307,200 payroll jobs in June, an increase of 1,700 from May but 2,700 fewer than a year earlier. The unemployment rate was 5.0%, compared with 4.8% in May and 4.7% in June 2025. Manufacturing is moving against the broader employment trend: the sector added 1,700 jobs, or 3.1%, year over year (Washington Employment Security Department [ESD], 2026).

Talent and workforce strengths

Snohomish County’s labor market has an unusually strong orientation toward manufacturing, aerospace, engineering, production, and skilled technical occupations. The combination of aerospace production, suppliers, advanced manufacturing, and engineering capabilities provides an established labor pool for companies that need to design and manufacture complex physical products (ESD, 2026).

Business cost and competitiveness

Snohomish County occupies a useful competitive position within Greater Seattle: companies can access the metropolitan area’s engineering and technology workforce while locating production and industrial operations outside the urban core. The county’s manufacturing ecosystem further reduces the need for companies to create specialized supplier and workforce networks from scratch.

Recent business investment and expansion

Boeing formally opened its new Everett 737 North Line in July. The company describes the project as part of a $1 billion investment in facilities, workforce training, and production-system capacity. The new line represents the first production of single-aisle Boeing aircraft in Everett and gives the 737 program additional production capacity (Boeing, 2026).

Infrastructure and business location advantages

The Cascade Industrial Center in Marysville and Arlington contains more than 4,000 acres zoned for manufacturing and industrial development, including more than 1,700 acres identified as available for development. Its designation as a regional Manufacturing and Industrial Center also supports infrastructure investment and development incentives (Snohomish County, 2026). Paine Field, the Boeing Everett complex, I-5, the Port of Everett, and regional rail and transit connections further strengthen the county’s proposition for production-oriented companies.

References: Boeing. (2026, July 14). New 737 North Line opens, showing Boeing’s $1 billion investment. The Boeing Company.
Snohomish County. (2026). Jobs and economic development. Snohomish County, Washington.
Washington Employment Security Department. (2026). Snohomish County profile. Employment Security Department, Labor Market Information and Research Division.

Pierce County, Washington | Business Attraction Brief

Pierce County, part of the Greater Seattle region is a major industrial, logistics, manufacturing, and maritime center in the Greater Seattle region, offering companies access to multimodal freight infrastructure, a large workforce, and competitive business locations in the South Sound.

Economic indicators

Pierce County had 349,400 payroll jobs in June, up 1,100 from May and 1,300 jobs, or 0.4%, from June 2025. The unemployment rate was 5.4%, compared with 5.1% in May and 5.0% one year earlier. Transportation, warehousing, and utilities employment declined by 1,000 jobs, or 1.4%, year over year (Washington Employment Security Department [ESD], 2026).

Talent and workforce strengths

Pierce County’s workforce is particularly relevant to logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, maritime, and military-adjacent employers. Joint Base Lewis-McChord strengthens the government sector and provides the regional economy with a continuing pipeline of military-connected workers possessing technical, operational, and leadership experience (ESD, 2026). The county also benefits from access to both the Pierce and King County labor markets; ESD estimates that 25%–30% of employed Pierce County residents commute to King County for work (ESD, 2026).

Business cost and competitiveness

Pierce County provides a compelling intra-regional cost option for employers that want access to the Greater Seattle economy while seeking alternatives to central King County locations. Its strongest proposition is not simply “cheaper Seattle,” however; it is the combination of industrial capacity, freight access, workforce availability, and South Sound connectivity.

Recent business investment and expansion

The Port of Tacoma approved a ground lease with Saxum Investment Company for a proposed cold-storage and food-processing development on a 30-acre site on the Blair-Hylebos Peninsula. Subject to final design, Saxum anticipates investing up to $250 million. The developer estimates the project could support as many as 400 jobs and generate up to $43 million in annual wages (Port of Tacoma, 2026).

Infrastructure and business location advantages

The final stage of the SR 167 Completion Project broke ground in July 2026. When completed, the project will provide freight with a more direct connection to and from the Port of Tacoma and close a significant missing link in the regional highway network. The final stage is currently scheduled to open in September 2029 (Washington State Department of Transportation [WSDOT], 2026). The Port of Tacoma, Tacoma Tideflats, rail connections, I-5 corridor, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord further strengthen the county’s industrial location proposition.

References: Port of Tacoma. (2026, June 16). Port of Tacoma Commission approves ground lease for major cold storage facility expected to create up to 400 jobs. Port of Tacoma.
Washington Employment Security Department. (2026). Pierce County profile. Employment Security Department, Labor Market Information and Research Division.
Washington State Department of Transportation. (2026, July 15). Digging into the final section of the SR 167 Expressway in Pierce County. WSDOT.

King County, Washington | Business Attraction Brief

King County, the largest employment center in the Greater Seattle region is the economic and innovation center of the Greater Seattle region, with deep concentrations of technology, aerospace, life sciences, research, professional services, and advanced manufacturing talent.

Economic indicators

King County recorded 1.488 million payroll jobs in June, up 12,000 from May but essentially flat from a year earlier (-0.1%). Unemployment was 4.9%, compared with 4.5% in June 2025. Information employment declined by 3,600 jobs year over year, while manufacturing employment increased by 600 (Washington Employment Security Department [ESD], 2026).

Talent and workforce strengths

King County’s scale and concentration of knowledge-intensive industries remain central workforce advantages. The county has a particularly strong technology base, along with substantial aerospace, professional-services, healthcare, research, and advanced-manufacturing employment. This ecosystem supports recruitment in AI, cloud computing, enterprise software, life sciences, aerospace, health technology, and other innovation-intensive industries (ESD, 2026).

Business cost and competitiveness

King County’s highly skilled labor force comes with comparatively high compensation and operating costs. For attraction work, the county is therefore better positioned around access to specialized talent, customers, research, capital, and innovation networks than around low operating cost.

Recent business investment and expansion

King County attracted significant technology, aviation, and advanced manufacturing investment in 2026. Anthropic signed a 113,000-square-foot long-term lease in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, while Databricks more than doubled its Greater Seattle office footprint to more than 270,000 square feet in Bellevue. Alaska Airlines also opened a more than $200 million, approximately 665,000-square-foot Global Training Center in Renton.

Infrastructure and business location advantages

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is undergoing major long-term modernization. The Port of Seattle estimates the S Concourse Evolution project at approximately $2.5 billion, with substantial completion currently anticipated in 2034 (Port of Seattle, 2026). The county also benefits from international maritime access, extensive regional transit, interstate highways, and one of the country’s densest concentrations of digital infrastructure and cloud-computing capabilities.

References: Port of Seattle. (2026). S Concourse Evolution. Port of Seattle.
Washington Employment Security Department. (2026). King County profile. Employment Security Department, Labor Market Information and Research Division.