Snohomish County is a blend of urban and suburban, white and blue collar.

Northern Snohomish County is the manufacturing center of Washington State. Twenty-five percent of our workforce is associated with manufacturing; twice the State average. The assembly of commercial aircraft is significant in our local economy, including both The Boeing Company and the associated supply chain. This supply chain, representing both products and services, is not limited to The Boeing Company. Many are doing business with Airbus while looking for opportunities with the growing list of single-aisle airframe manufacturers. Additionally, these suppliers have diversified to serve multiple markets including shipbuilding, defense, energy generation, etc.

Southern Snohomish County, with its proximity to Seattle, has a concentration of knowledgeable workers and life science companies. T-Mobile has an engineering technology center with a staff of 600 and Google is planning to open a facility in Bothell that is designed to house 800 workers. On the life science side, we have a cluster of medical device companies with a specific focus in ultrasound diagnostics. Philips Healthcare and Sonosite have a combined workforce of 3000.  On the pharmaceutical side and smaller in scale, CMC Biologics has 200 scientists researching and producing pharmaceuticals on a contract basis.

There is a noteworthy migration of workers between King County (Seattle) and Snohomish County on a daily basis.

A breakdown of our employed workforce, based on SOC codes, is provided below.

 

SOC	Standard Occupational Code (SOC) Description	2012 Jobs
11-0000	Management Occupations	21,269
13-0000	Business and Financial Operations Occupations	21,491
15-0000	Computer and Mathematical Occupations	12,010
17-0000	Architecture and Engineering Occupations	15,324
19-0000	Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations	3,276
21-0000	Community and Social Service Occupations	4,507
23-0000	Legal Occupations	1,931
25-0000	Education, Training, and Library Occupations	14,117
27-0000	Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations	9,377
29-0000	Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations	12,170
31-0000	Healthcare Support Occupations	6,937
33-0000	Protective Service Occupations	4,722
35-0000	Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations	21,837
37-0000	Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations	11,915
39-0000	Personal Care and Service Occupations	15,507
41-0000	Sales and Related Occupations	43,869
43-0000	Office and Administrative Support Occupations	35,584
45-0000	Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations	1,496
47-0000	Construction and Extraction Occupations	17,165
49-0000	Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations	12,894
51-0000	Production Occupations	27,053
53-0000	Transportation and Material Moving Occupations	15,847
55-0000	Military occupations	6,585
99-0000	Unclassified Occupation	1,072
	Total	337,954

 

Additionally, the Washington State Employment Security Department produces monthly Labor Area Summaries for Snohomish County and the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett MD (King & Snohomish Counties).