Have you fallen in love with the Inland Northwest and are considering a move to the Spokane area but are curious what the job market is like and who the top employers are? Well this video is for you! I’m excited to share with you the top 15 employers here in Spokane.

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#15 Gonzaga University

In the number 15 spot, we have Gonzaga University. Now as we go, we’ll kind of talk about trends to notice and industries that seem to be doing well in Spokane and so right off the bat you’ll see that Education is a very big industry for our area. Gonzaga employs one thousand two hundred and ninety three people with an increase of about 30 employees over the last year. And for those of you who don’t know, Gonzaga is one of our private universities here in Spokane and is nationally known for our basketball team, the Gonzaga bulldogs, but also if you’re someone that is thinking of going to law school, they have a heavy weight to any resume when getting into the career. It’s a beautiful campus right along the Spokane river and the centennial trail runs conveniently through it allowing you to walk or bike east or west away from the campus. Currently they have 38 job openings listed on their website so if you’re looking to make a move as a professor or faculty member, it could be worth checking out.

#14 Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center

Number 14 is the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center or as most people call it, the VA Hospital. This is another trend you’ll start seeing as we go down the list but healthcare is another huge industry in our area especially as we’ve expanded our university district which has lead to the University of Washington and Washington State University to have their main nursing campuses here in Spokane. The VA Hospital employs one thousand three hundred and twenty two people and currently over 100 jobs available to apply for online. So if you’re a traveling nurse watching this or a nurse looking for a place to settle down, Spokane has many medical positions.

#13 Walmart

13 is Walmart and that’s everything from retail to pharmacy and delivery. Some positions don’t need much on a resume and others might be more corporate positions or specialists like the people that work at the pharmacy. There are currently one thousand four hundred and twenty two employees in Spokane County which is actually down by over 500 people from this time last year. I find that very interesting and curious as to why that happened so if you are someone that worked at Walmart in 2021, leave a comment down below, let us know what happened!

#12 Spokane Falls Community College and the Spokane Community College

And here we are, back in education for number 12 which is the Spokane Community Colleges. We have two community colleges here in Spokane, the Spokane Falls Community College and the Spokane Community College or SFCC and SCC respectively. Very generally speaking, SFCC tends to be more for Liberal Arts and SCC tends to be more for the trades but I’ve known people that have gone to the other school for Liberal arts and vice versa. I think something that is really cool for high school students that I know is not available everywhere, is the option to do running start. High School students in Spokane can opt to start going to community college when they’re a Junior in high school and can actually graduate from High school with a diploma and an AA which is really cool. It allowed my little sister to only have to attend her undergrad for 2 years because she had all of her basic classes done and for a lot cheaper. 

#11 Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority (Northern Quest Resort and Casino)

Number 11 on the list is the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority which is the fancy name for the Northern Quest Resort and Casino and all that they provide to the Spokane area. Now, I’m not a big casino goer, I haven’t stepped foot in one since I stopped being a professional drummer in Montana playing country gigs multiple nights a week, but the Northern Quest Casino is a very nice place to go with a beautiful hotel, they have a Masselows out there so some amazing steak options, they just introduced sports betting if that’s something that you’re into, and they have a ton of other amenities and have been growing a lot in Airway heights. They’ve had almost a ten percent growth in employment over the last year and now have just over fifteen hundred employees.

#10 URM Stores

From their website, URM is a retailer-owned co op meaning that the owners and shareholders of URM are also retail grocers, or in other terms, their customers. So for example, Rosauers might get their food supplied by URM but Rosauers also is part owner in the company. And this is the first company that touches on another large sector of business in Spokane which is Logistics. Spokane has a hub for freight, flight deliveries and railroad deliveries because we are situated right along Interstate 90 that runs east and west and Highway 195 that runs north and south. So if being in that industry on the technology side, engineering, management, but that also provides opportunities for a lot of manufacturing and more laborious jobs that need to be filled as well. URM currently has just over sixteen hundred employees.

#9 Central Valley School District

Next up is our second largest school district here in Spokane, so for spot number nine we have the Central Valley School District. This district covers the South side of I 90 from Dishman Mica all the way to the Idaho Border including Liberty Lake. They’ve recently added Ridgeline High School and Selkirk middle school to help with the expansion of Liberty Lake and Greenacres with all of the new housing projects going on in that area. The sixteen hundred employees are spread across thirty schools assisting just over fourteen thousand students so the adult to student ratio is about 1 in 10.

#8 City of Spokane & #7 Spokane County

Now I’ll combine our next two which would be 8 and 7 because they’re relatively similar but those employers would be our local government. The City of Spokane and Spokane County employ four thousand people in the Spokane area and that can be anything from office jobs like city planners and data analysts to police officers and firefighters to judges to park managers and maintenance workers. So this is a wide spectrum of employment here in the area that want to contribute directly to the betterment of the city and the county.

#6 MultiCare Health System of the Inland Northwest

Number six is the MultiCare Health System of the Inland Northwest which basically covers a ton of our smaller hospitals and clinics like Rochwood, Indigo, Deaconess, and the Valley Hospital. They have thirty one hundred employees.

#5 Amazon

Five is still newer to the area but rapidly growing just like they are everywhere else and that is Amazon. Within the last maybe five years, we have had two amazon fulfillment centers show up in our area, one outside Airway Heights and the other along Trent in the Valley. The only bummer is that we still don’t have same day or even one day delivery here, sometimes it takes a week but now I just sound privilege so we’re moving on! But before I do, they currently employ over thirty seven hundred people providing a ton of job opportunities. Love them or hate them, they provide opportunities or people to make a lot of money at the top and give people a place to maybe work a terrible job fulfilling orders, but everyone has to start somewhere.

#4 School District 81

Number four is our largest school district here in spokane, District 81. Like I said, the trends continue with another huge employer in the education space. District 81 has seven high schools, six middle schools which I think will be eight or nine here soon and thirty four elementary schools which adds up to nearly thirty thousand students and provides just over thirty seven hundred jobs. One thing I want to say is that teachers get paid pretty well in Washington for the cost of living. I know multiple teachers that have been in for less than ten years that make very close to six figures a year and if you’re a two teacher household which seems to be somewhat common, you can make a solid household income for our area. I got my education license in Montana and the pay was nothing like it is here so that’s something to consider if you’re moving from out of the area.

#3 State of Washington

Number 3 is more government jobs from the State of Washington which is over fifty five hundred jobs here in Spokane county, that’s pretty wild. If you include all the teaching jobs and the city and county, basically all government jobs available in our area, it probably adds up to close to five percent of people in Spokane county have a government job of some sort which is an interesting observation.

#2 Providence Inland Northwest

In second place is another healthcare company, Providence Inland Northwest which would be in conjunction with Sacred Heart. That is our largest hospital in Spokane and the largest in the inland northwest.The hospital is highly awarded in multiple areas from stroke care to cardiac issues. I’m obviously not a doctor so I don’t know all the terms but I know that it is a highly respected hospital and patients are flown in from all across the inland northwest for care here. They currently have just over six thousand employees and I have multiple clients who work here, make great money and have really flexible schedules, too. It honestly makes me kind of jealous.

#1 Fairchild Air Force Base

And finally, our number one employer here in Spokane is not in education or healthcare, but it is for the government, it’s Fairchild Air Force Base. Now to my surprise there are over sixty seven hundred people that work for the air force base which is wild and the cool thing is, there are almost seventy jobs available on base and all of them can be applied to by the public. They’re looking for physicists, engineers, cooks, psychologists, biologists, nurses, you name it. Maybe I’m the dumb one but I had no idea they employed that many “civilians” which is just super cool. The other thing to note is just how many of these jobs are in the west plains of Spokane or around the town of Airway Heights. You have the Base, Amazon, Northwest Quest Casino all in or around the town itself so I think this area is going to keep growing a lot over the next few years.