The greater Seattle area is home to a wide variety of firms and companies and has been one of the most economically diverse areas for the past couple of decades.  Early on Seattle was a port city.  AS it began to grow, companies like Boeing and Microsoft have dominated to corporate landscape.  Hundreds of startups and entrepreneurs make Seattle their home and the economy has been able to really reinvent itself recently so as to not so closely follow the successes and failures of the bigger companies like Boeing and Microsoft.  No longer tied to its corporate roots, the Seattle area has been able to thrive during the economic recession.

One of the advantages Seattle has over its inland neighbors is its port.  The city is home to the second busiest port in the country and is a major gateway to the east.  Trade with China and Japan has a direct effect on Seattle’s economy, and since the recession has slowed the trade sectors down quite a bit, the city is feeling the pinch.

Seattle has the most coffee houses per capita of any US city.  Seattle-based Starbucks has had to downsize a bit and close a few hundred stores over the past year, but is still going strong as one of the city’s most vibrant and dominant headquartered firms.  Another Seattle success story is Amazon.  This company went from a garage-sized storehouse to being one of the world’s leading online retail distributors in less than a decade.  There are hundreds of other tech startups and headquarters here as well as a thriving services and education sector.  Many colleges and universities make Seattle their home, and the workforce reflects this.

Not everything in the city is rosy though.  Seattle’s unemployment rate is far below the national average, but currently rests at a 25 year high of just under 9%.  This has been slowly ticking upwards as jobs have been lost in nearly every sector.  The unemployment rate has nearly doubled in only one year, and as more and more people run out of government unemployment benefits, that number is likely to grow unofficially.  Washington is faring better than the national average but not by much.  This small margin may cease to exist in the coming six months as the recession continues to take its toll across America.

The unemployment rate will likely fall through the holiday season due to the fact that many out of work Seattleites will find temporary seasonal jobs.  I do not expect the January and February numbers to be that great though, since most temp workers will be out of a job come new years.  But the Seattle area is certainly better than many other cities on the west coast and in the US as a whole for those looking for work.  It’s got one of the youngest and best educated workforces in the nation, and coming here to fin work in the high tech or aerospace industries is not a bad idea, considering many other west coast cities built on these economic pillars are struggling and then some.