About half are employed in the wireless communications sector. These employees are highly educated and are often recruited from all parts of the country, and in fact the world, to work in area companies. The Telecommunications Industry in Washington State Over the past hundred years, Greater Seattle has displayed an great ability to re-invent itself and its local economy. Thriving first as a center for the timber and fishing industries, as a crossroads of trade by sea and rail, then as a center of aerospace manufacturing, it has most recently become a research, technology and entrepreneurism hub for software, biotechnical, telecommunications and other high technology firms. Today, Greater Seattle is a center for leading edge technologies that merge computing, communications, electronic devices and digital media.
Telecommunications represents one of the emerging sectors of employment growth in Washington.
Most of the growth in the state occurred in the Greater Seattle area and came from newer telecommunications services such as cellular, paging and satellite services, and data and video transmission. Related employment supporting telecommunications includes professional services in areas such as law and regulatory affairs, financing, marketing, cell site development, and research and development of new applications.