There may be some interesting information to behold in the next Census. The pandemic has caused some interesting movements of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau reports, “there was a shift from larger more populous counties to medium and smaller ones. These patterns contributed to population increases in 1,822 counties (58.0%), while 1,313 (41.8%) lost residents, and eight (0.3%) saw no change in population.” Seattle itself saw a significant decline.
Locally, estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the population of King County declining by more than 20,000 people between July 2020 and July 2021. This area is home to the tech hubs of Seattle and Bellevue. The tech industry specifically maybe fueled in part by the rise of remote work and newfound flexibility for many information workers. The increase in better remote technology and apps has changed the lives of many. Zoom has been an obvious leader in helping to make work from an office easier.
There was a decade of rapid growth followed by the mentioned decline. The growth to the area was driven by a booming tech economy and more than 100 out-of-town tech companies setting up engineering centers in the greater Seattle area. The decline in the King County area followed.
The numbers show a decrease in the King County population from 2.27 million to 2.25 million last year. That is, data shows, one-third of 1% which is significantly less than the decreases in many other major metro areas across the country.
There are also increases in population to a few smaller counties as some workers moved away from the city. Census estimates are showing that these changes happened in the smaller Washington state counties between July 2020 and 2021. Remote work from home in addition to other factors influenced the population change along with a decrease in international immigration and COVID deaths.
