The news broke on a Thursday afternoon, and it hit Seattle like another punch in the gut. Starbucks, the coffee giant that helped build this city’s identity, filed paperwork revealing more than 200 corporate layoffs at its headquarters. Two hundred people. But that number doesn’t tell the whole story.
Jennifer Dalling, a reporter from Fox 13, went straight to the experts to understand what was really happening. She talked to Joseph Phillips, an economics professor at Seattle University. He explained that the layoffs were hitting two specific groups of employees—IT workers who had been told to relocate to Nashville, and those who simply refused to go. “We knew Starbucks was going to move its IT to Nashville,” Phillips said.
“Those employees were offered the opportunity to go. Some of them decided they didn’t want to do that. Now we’re finding out that 120 of them don’t want to leave. ”
One hundred and twenty people chose their homes, their families, their lives in Seattle over a job with the company that once defined this city.
And for that choice, they lost their jobs. Nick Huntington-Klein, another economics professor, pointed out that this was just the latest round. “Ten percent of their Seattle corporate workforce, a lot of them in the support center. We’ve already seen several rounds of layoffs with Starbucks.
These are largely high-paying, high-quality jobs. ”
Seattle was once the tech capital of the world. Amazon. Microsoft.
Companies that put this city on the map. They had massive presences here, employing tens of thousands of people. But one by one, those companies are packing up. They don’t want to be taxed to death.
They don’t want to be regulated into the ground. They don’t want to be demonized for making money. So they leave. And it’s not just tech anymore.
The city has lost over 40,000 jobs in the last four years. The downtown core, once filled with cranes and construction and record growth, is now a shell of what it was. One report calls it the highest commercial vacancy rate among big cities in the entire country. Mark Barbieri, the president of AOME Architects, has watched his business collapse in real time.
They’ve been around for decades, but now the phone just isn’t ringing the way it used to. “It’s not the normal seasonal dip,” he said. “We just had our largest project cancelled. After a significant amount of design work, we were ready to start the permitting process.
They cancelled the project and cited the millionaire’s tax as one of the proximal reasons they didn’t want to make the investment anymore. ”
His revenue has declined by over 50%. In a matter of months. When asked about politicians who dismiss the wealth exodus as overblown, Barbieri didn’t hold back.
“Those politicians have the advantage of a press release. When my client cancelled their project, they didn’t make a press release. They just told us and kept it to themselves. But at industry events, it’s the hot topic of conversation.
Everyone is feeling the chill. And economic impacts magnify very quickly in this industry. ”
The pain is spreading through design, engineering, construction, labor. Nobody is immune.
And all of this has led to a recall petition against Mayor Katie Wilson. The effort is moving forward, at least for now. It’s been assigned to a King County Civil Superior Court judge. At an August 31st hearing, the judge will decide if the allegations meet state recall laws—whether she broke the law or committed serious misconduct.
The petition cites the crime in the North Aurora neighborhood and the Chinatown International District. It points to her firing of police chief Shawn Barnes. It questions her handling of city CCTV cameras, which were turned off after the World Cup and followed by a weekend shootout in Pioneer Square. A poll showed 75% of voters support public safety cameras, but Wilson has her own priorities.
When asked about the recall effort at a press conference on affordable housing, she seemed completely unbothered. “That is a legal process that will be playing out,” she said. “I’m focused on leading the city and on making it an affordable place for people to live. ”
Asked if she would appear at the hearing, her answer was short.
“I personally will not be there. I will be represented by counsel. ”
Fox 13 asked who would represent her and whether taxpayers would foot the bill. They’re still waiting for an answer.
And while she signs executive orders and waits for audits, the city around her keeps bleeding. The commercial real estate reports are grim. The job reports are worse. Homelessness is still a crisis.
The only bright spot, according to those who track the numbers, is that violence appears to be down—though still far too high. But the pattern is clear. Seattle is trending in the wrong direction. The jobs aren’t coming back.
The businesses aren’t returning. And the people who want to fix it are pointing at the mayor, even as the economy crumbles around her. The recall petition is moving forward. The question is whether it will succeed.
And even if it does, replacing one person isn’t going to undo the decades of policies that drove this city to the brink. The cranes are gone. The growth has stopped. And in the offices of architecture firms and tech companies, the same quiet conversation is happening over and over.
Are you feeling the impacts of this? Everyone is.
