No. E7, April 1999
Location of Jobs and People in Central Puget Sound
While central Puget Sound's largest cities and towns are home to just over half of the region's population, these jurisdictions contain more than 80 percent of the jobs.
The chart below ranks the region, counties, and cities by population and shows the ratio of jobs to people in each jurisdiction. The population numbers represent total population and not labor force.
Ratio of Jobs to Residents for Cities with Population Greater than 10,000
The regional job to population ratio is approximately 0.57, which indicates that a little over half of the population makes up the employed regional work force. As can be seen, jobs and people are not equally distributed across the region. Some jurisdictions have many more jobs than people (Tukwila), others house more people than jobs (Lake Forest Park and Edgewood), and still others contain nearly equal numbers of people and jobs (Seattle). Jurisdictions with a ratio less than the regional ratio of 0.57 can be considered more a source of workers than a destination for work.
The above map shows jurisdictions by ratio of jobs to people. Many of the jurisdictions with ratios greater than 1.0 are on the east side of Lake Washington. This high ratio of jobs to people is one of the reasons that commuter routes are often congested in both east and westbound directions.
For more information about this Trend, contact Amanda Kochanek at (206) 587-5667.
NOTES: The chart shows 1998 population and the 1997 ratio of jobs to people for each jurisdiction.
Covington and Maple Valley were incorporated in 1997 and the ratio of jobs to people is estimated.
