The largest employers in Seattle: the regional lists, county by county, and what they leave out

This page is for job seekers, workforce and economic development staff, reporters and B2B sellers who want to know who employs the most people in the Seattle area. It uses the lists the region's own economic development organizations publish, the employers' SEC filings and federal job data, and explains what each source counts. It doesn't rank employers by revenue; for that, see the biggest companies in Seattle.

The region's five largest employers

Greater Seattle Partners, the public-private economic development organization for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, lists Washington's top employers by in-state employment in its 2025 Greater Seattle Economic Overview, published in May 2026:

The counts are statewide, but most of these jobs are in the three-county region. Two are worth reading against the companies' own filings. Amazon's 10-K reports about 1,576,000 employees worldwide, so Washington is about 6% of its workforce. Boeing's 10-K says the IAM District 751 union local alone represents more than 30,000 Boeing manufacturing employees, mostly in Washington.

Like New York, the City of Seattle doesn't publish a principal-employers table in its annual financial report; its 2025 report shows King County employment by industry instead. The City itself had 13,677 full-time-equivalent employees in 2025, led by police (1,866), Seattle Public Utilities (1,574), fire (1,227) and parks (1,203).

Snohomish County: Boeing and everyone else

Economic Alliance Snohomish County, the county's economic development organization, publishes its top 20 employers for 2025 from Lightcast data. In the order published:

The published order doesn't always follow the counts (Amazon's 2,725 is listed after Everett Public Schools' 2,375), and Lightcast's figures are modeled estimates, so treat close ranks as ties. The point that holds is the gap: Boeing employs more than four times as many people in the county as the next employer.

Pierce County: a military base at the top

The Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County names Joint Base Lewis-McChord as the county's top employer, with 54,000 full-time-equivalent positions, and lists Amazon, Boeing, MultiCare Health System, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Kaiser Permanente among its other major employers without counts. Its downloadable employer lists date from 2020, so use them for names rather than numbers.

JBLM's figure is a reminder of what job statistics miss: the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) excludes members of the armed forces, so most of those 54,000 positions don't appear in the county's covered job count.

How many jobs are public and private

The QCEW counts every job covered by unemployment insurance. For King, Pierce and Snohomish counties together in 2025:

State government is concentrated in King County (51,191 jobs), where the University of Washington is the largest public employer. Federal civilian jobs are highest in King (18,268) and Pierce (10,933).

Information jobs pay an average of $359,742 a year in the three counties, almost three times the all-industry average, because they include the software and cloud staff of the region's largest employers.

The biggest workplaces are head offices

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counts private workplaces by size. In 2023 the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro had 137 establishments with 1,000 or more employees, 186 with 500 to 999 and 501 with 250 to 499. By sector, the 137 largest were:

In New York City, health care has the most 1,000-plus workplaces (at least 156 of 401). In Seattle, corporate campuses edge health care out, which is why a handful of companies decide so much of the region's spending on facilities, food service, transport and benefits. CBP covers private employers only and counts locations, not companies.

Selling to Seattle's largest employers

1. Corporate campuses (Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Costco, PACCAR) buy through central procurement with supplier onboarding and security reviews; facilities, food, commute and workplace services are often run by a campus or real estate team.
2. Boeing suppliers that touch production should expect an aerospace quality qualification before any order; services for its Puget Sound sites are a separate, simpler route.
3. Public employers (UW, school districts, the state, the City) buy through posted solicitations and vendor registration.
4. Health systems (Providence Swedish, MultiCare, Evergreen) buy clinical products through group purchasing and non-clinical services through their own supply chain teams.

Washington's Commute Trip Reduction law gives one category of seller a natural opening. Under RCW 70A.15.4040, major employers at affected worksites must name a transportation coordinator, tell employees about alternatives to driving alone and report progress toward reduction goals, and the law lists measures such as transit fare subsidies, vanpools and telework.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional; the employer figures are from Economic Alliance Snohomish County's list.

Mukilteo Vanpool Co. (mukilteovanpool.example) runs employer vanpools and wants the private employers on the Snohomish list with more than 1,000 county employees.

• Seven qualify: Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Providence Swedish, Premera Blue Cross, AT&T and T-Mobile US, with 27,203 county employees between them.
• If 5% of those employees joined vanpools priced at $90 a rider per month, that's about 1,360 riders and $1.47 million a year.
• It contacts each site's transportation coordinator first, because the law requires one, then the benefits team that funds subsidies.

Bebop can find the transportation coordinators and benefits leads at each site and draft outreach that reflects each employer's commute program.

Subject: Vanpools for [Company]'s [Everett / Bothell] site

Hi [first name],

As [Company]'s transportation coordinator, you're probably working out how to move the next commute survey's drive-alone rate without adding parking.

We run vanpools for Snohomish County employers, with vehicles, insurance and ride-matching included and reporting that drops straight into your commute trip reduction report. Would a map of where your [site] employees commute from be useful?

[Your name], Mukilteo Vanpool Co.

Next step: see the metro's 110,685 business establishments by county and size in companies in Seattle.