Change in private business counts and private jobs

What this dataset measures

Built to check whether Washington's business climate is getting worse. It brings together measures of business activity over time (new business filings, business openings and closings, private job growth, business counts), the published tax and business rankings, and the direct measures of big employers (headquarters filings, very large worksites and their jobs, and the state's layoff-notice database, with the 2025 change in the state's layoff-notice law marked).

Geography

Washington, United States

Unit of observation

Varies by table: company, year, quarter, or layoff notice

Update cadence

One-time release; may be revised as new quarterly data arrive

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• farm-employer-names.txt Documentation · text/plain · 1 KB (1,040 bytes)

  The employer names flagged as farms or orchards in the layoff notices.

• build.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 15.7 KB (16,124 bytes)

  Node.js script that builds every table and saved analysis from the input files.

• official-series.json Source manifest · application/json · 5.6 KB (5,715 bytes)

  The official figures used as inputs (BLS QCEW, Census Business Formation Statistics, population, ESD workbook), with series IDs.

• sec-submissions.json Source manifest · application/json · 3.3 KB (3,400 bytes)

  The fields read from the SEC EDGAR submissions API for each company.

• analyses.json Documentation · application/json · 13.8 KB (14,156 bytes)

  Every saved-analysis result, as written by build.js.

• climate-series.json Source manifest · application/json · 3 KB (3,054 bytes)

  Input figures for the business-climate tables (BLS Business Employment Dynamics and Current Employment Statistics series, Tax Foundation and CNBC ranks), with series IDs.

Saved analyses

Sources

1. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR submissions API Business address and latest annual report (Form 10-K) for each company, from https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK##########.json

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Addresses are what each company reports to the SEC on its filings. The SEC has no stake in where companies locate.

2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW establishment size data First-quarter counts of private worksites with 1,000 or more employees and their March employment, 2019-2026 (same file pattern for each year)

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Built from unemployment-insurance tax reports that nearly all employers file each quarter. Washington's data come from the state Employment Security Department.

3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW series ENU5300020510, ENUUS00020510, ENU5300010510, ENUUS00010510 Private-sector establishment counts and employment, Washington and U.S.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Same unemployment-insurance records as the size data. Establishment counts depend on how employers' reporting units are recorded.

4. Washington Employment Security Department, WARN layoff and closure database Every layoff and closure notice in the database, June 2018 to November 2, 2026

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Notices are filed by employers under the federal WARN Act and, from July 27, 2025, Washington's own notice law. ESD lists them by the date it receives them. The first 15 rows of the copy matched the live table on November 3, 2026.

5. Washington State Legislature, RCW 49.45.010 Definitions of covered employer and mass layoff in Washington's notice law (2025 c 277)

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Official statute text from the Code Reviser.

6. Washington Employment Security Department Date the state notice law took effect

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. The agency that administers the notice law and keeps the database.

7. 29 U.S. Code 2101 (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School) Federal WARN Act definitions of employer and mass layoff

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain statute text. Permitted

   Reliability: Academic. Cornell's copy of the U.S. Code text.

8. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics via FRED, BAHBATOTALNSAWA Monthly high-propensity business applications, Washington, not seasonally adjusted

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Census counts applications for federal employer ID numbers and flags those likely to become employers. FRED republishes the series unchanged.

9. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics via FRED, BAHBATOTALNSAUS Monthly high-propensity business applications, United States, not seasonally adjusted

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

   Reliability: Government. Same Census program as the Washington series.

10. FRED, resident population WAPOP (Census) and B230RC0A052NBEA (BEA) Annual population of Washington and the U.S. (U.S. series https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B230RC0A052NBEA), used for per-person rates

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

    Reliability: Government. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis population estimates.

11. Washington Employment Security Department, Monthly Employment Report charts workbook, September 2026 Over-the-year job change by industry, September 2025 to September 2026 (sheet 'Industry employment OTY, nsa', updated October 14, 2026)

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Permitted

    Reliability: Government. ESD's monthly survey-based estimates (Current Employment Statistics), revised when benchmarked to tax records.

12. InvestmentNews Fisher Investments headquarters move, March 27, 2023

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved. Link only

    Reliability: News report. Trade news report.

13. Southern Business & Development Avalara headquarters now Durham, June 24, 2024

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved. Link only

    Reliability: News report. Economic-development trade publication quoting the company.

14. KIRO 7 Payscale headquarters change, December 8, 2025

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved. Link only

    Reliability: News report. Local TV news report.

15. Trade & Industry Development Starbucks Nashville office, April 22, 2026

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved. Link only

    Reliability: News report. Economic-development trade publication reporting the Tennessee announcement.

16. KIRO 7 Columbia Bank executive office in Arizona, October 2026

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved. Link only

    Reliability: News report. Local TV news report summarizing the Puget Sound Business Journal.

17. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, series BDS0000053000000000120007RQ5, BDS0000053000000000120008RQ5, BDS0000000000000000120007RQ5, BDS0000000000000000120008RQ5, BDS0000053000000000120007LQ5, BDS0000053000000000120008LQ5 Quarterly private establishment births (openings of new businesses) and deaths (closings that last a year), as a percent of establishments, Washington and U.S., seasonally adjusted, 2014 to early 2026; Washington counts from 2017

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

    Reliability: Government. Built from the same unemployment-insurance records as the QCEW, linked across quarters so new and closed businesses can be told apart from accounts that change hands.

18. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, series SMS53000000500000001 and CES0500000001 Monthly private-sector jobs, Washington and U.S., seasonally adjusted, thousands

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Permitted

    Reliability: Government. Monthly payroll survey estimates, benchmarked each year to tax records.

19. Tax Foundation, 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index Washington's overall rank for 2020-2026 from the edition's table of past ranks recomputed with the 2026 method

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Publisher copyright; ranks cited as facts. Facts cited with attribution

    Reliability: Advocacy group. Has a stake in this finding. A think tank that favors low, broad-based taxes. Its index scores tax structure only, not overall economic conditions.

20. CNBC, America's Top States for Business 2019 Washington's 2019 overall, Cost of Doing Business and Business Friendliness ranks

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Publisher copyright; ranks cited as facts. Facts cited with attribution

    Reliability: News report. A business news network that scores states in 10 categories from public data; weights change each year.

21. CNBC, America's Top States for Business 2026: Washington Washington's 2026 overall, Cost of Doing Business and Business Friendliness ranks, and the 2025 ranks the page compares them with

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Publisher copyright; ranks cited as facts. Facts cited with attribution

    Reliability: News report. A business news network that scores states in 10 categories from public data; weights change each year.

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible: build.js recomputes every table and saved analysis from four input files: sec-submissions.json (SEC EDGAR submissions API), official-series.json (BLS QCEW, Census Business Formation Statistics via FRED, population, and the ESD September 2026 workbook), climate-series.json (BLS Business Employment Dynamics and Current Employment Statistics series, and the Tax Foundation and CNBC ranks) and warn-notices.csv (ESD WARN database). Run node build.js. The input numbers can be re-pulled from the source URLs.

• Headquarters are checked for 14 large Washington-based public companies, chosen as the best-known large employers; it is not every company ever based in Washington. Private companies other than Nordstrom are not covered.
• The 1,000-plus worker count is of worksites (establishments), not companies. One company can run several such sites, and a company can be headquartered elsewhere. Counts are for the first quarter of each year.
• Washington's business counts in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) fell sharply between 2022 and 2023 and swing more than the U.S. series, which points to changes in how employers' accounts are recorded. Long comparisons across 2022-23 are unreliable; the first-quarter 2026 figures are preliminary.
• Layoff notices are not comparable before and after July 27, 2025, when Washington's own notice law took effect. It covers employers with 50 or more workers and counts layoffs statewide, where the federal law covers employers with 100 or more and counts by site. Farm and orchard notices appear almost only after that date.
• Layoff notices show planned layoffs at Washington sites. They do not show relocations, actual separations, or rehiring, and seasonal farm notices recur each year.
• Farm and orchard notices are flagged by employer name (farm-employer-names.txt). Farm labor contractors and growers with generic names, such as Borton & Sons, are counted as other employers, so the farm share is a lower bound.
• New business filings (high-propensity business applications) are applications likely to become employers, not businesses actually opened.
• Washington's business openings and closings data (BLS Business Employment Dynamics) show unexplained spikes in closings in some quarters, such as the second quarter of 2022 and the first quarters of 2023 and 2024, likely from cleanups of inactive employer accounts. Closing counts that include those quarters overstate real closures; opening rates are steadier.
• Tax and business rankings are published judgments that weight their inputs differently and change methods. Tax Foundation ranks are taken from one edition (2026) for every year, because its editions recompute past years differently. CNBC reweights its categories each year and skipped 2020.
• State monthly job estimates (Current Employment Statistics) are revised each year against tax records; the latest months are preliminary.